u can?"

"As I see it."

"As you see it!"

"Yes. It's a brilliant idea; I could never have conceived it."

"You believe--"

"I know."

"Sit here. Let's see what you know."

Sweetwater sat down at the table the other pointed out, and drawing
forward a piece of paper, took up a pencil with an easy air. Brotherson
approached and stood at his shoulder. He had taken up his pistol again,
why he hardly knew, and as Sweetwater began his marks, his fingers
tightened on its butt till they turned white in the murky lamplight.

"You see," came in easy tones from the stooping draughtsman, "I have an
imagination which only needs a slight fillip from a mind like yours to
send it in the desired direction. I shall not draw an exact reproduction
of your idea, but I think you will see that I understand it very well.
How's that for a start?"

Brotherson looked and hastily drew back. He did not want the other to
note his surprise.

"But that is a portion you never saw," he loudly declared.

"No, but I saw this," returned Sweetwater, working busily on some
curves; "and these gave me the fillip I mentioned. The rest came
easily."

Brotherson, in dread of his own anger, threw his pistol to the other end
of the shed:

"You knave! You thief!" he furiously cried.

"How so?" asked Sweetwater smilingly, rising and looking him calmly in
the face. "A thief is one who appropriates another man's goods, or, let
us say, another man's ideas. I have appropriated nothing yet. I've only
shown you how easily I could do so. Mr. Brotherson, take me in as your
assistant. I will be faithful to you, I swear it. I want to see that
machine go up."

"For how many people have you drawn those lines?" thundered the
inexorable voice.

"For nobody; not for myself even. This is the first time they have left
their hiding-place in my brain."

"Can you swear to that?"

"I can and will, if you require it. But you ought to believe my word,
sir. I am square as a die in all matters not connected--well, not
connected with my profession," he smiled in a burst of that whimsical
humour, which not even the seriousness of the moment could quite
suppress.

"And what surety have I that you do not consider this very matter of
mine as coming within the bounds you speak of?"

"None. But you must trust me that far."

Brotherson surveyed him with an irony which conveyed a very different
message to the detective than any he had intended. Then quickly:

"To how m