ing both instructors and students, knew the special work
he had been doing. Among the great number of special and changing
experiments going on in the shop it had not been difficult to keep his
discovery to himself.

He chose a night when a great social event was occurring in hopes that
he might have the shop to himself. There were a few enthusiastic
specialists who did considerable night work, but on this particular
evening they went out early and by nine o'clock he found himself alone.
The power which lighted the town of Burrton was the same as that in use
at the school and was in operation day and night. The conditions seemed
absolutely favorable to a test of his invention, and by ten o'clock
Walter had made all connections and brought his electrodes into
position.

The only question with him was whether the heat of the arc would melt
the soft metal teeth at the right time and with even regularity. He was
pale and nervous with the tension of the work, his loss of sleep and his
goading of conscience, and when the carbons started to glow with the
familiar hiss, he started back as if someone had come in, and looked
around the shop fearfully.

Then he laughed hysterically and turned again to his machine. His whole
attention was now fastened upon it, and with the true inventor's ecstasy
he forgot Bauer, forgot his mother, forgot that he was at the center of
a great moral tragedy for his own soul, forgot there was a God, and a
judgment day and any such things as conscience or remorse, or injustice.

His whole soul flung itself on that point of dazzling light and the soft
metal teeth which he had coupled in a strip to the electrodes. He
watched it, fascinated and fearful. He saw the tooth begin to glow to a
red, then to a white, heat and then it melted softly away, letting the
electrodes fall gently, keeping the points of their position in perfect
place while the second tooth slipped down in turn to be transformed into
a soft and yielding point.

The lamp worked! It was a practical success! It had stood the test! He
did not know how long he had been in the shop or how long he had been
watching the mechanism. He switched off the power, and adjusted a part
of the scissors-coupling. Then he turned on the current again and with
the same feeling of fascination watched the softening and dissolving of
the metal tooth.

A noise of a door opening aroused him and he looked up. Someone had come
in, and was walking directly towa