ed.

For at this very moment, while the president of Plutoria University
drew nearer and nearer to the Grand Palaver Hotel, the senior professor
of geology was working again beside the blue flames in his darkened
laboratory. And this time there was no shaking excitement over him. Nor
were the labels that he marked, as sample followed sample in the tests,
the same as those of the previous marking. Not by any means.

And his grave face as he worked in silence was as still as the stones
of the post-tertiary period.

CHAPTER THREE: The Arrested Philanthropy of Mr. Tomlinson

"This, Mr. Tomlinson, is our campus," said President Boomer as they
passed through the iron gates of Plutoria University.

"For camping?" said the Wizard.

"Not exactly," answered the president, "though it would, of course,
suit for that. _Nihil humunum alienum_, eh?" and he broke into a loud,
explosive laugh, while his spectacles irradiated that peculiar form of
glee derived from a Latin quotation by those able to enjoy it. Dr.
Boyster, walking on the other side of Mr. Tomlinson, joined in the
laugh in a deep, reverberating chorus.

The two had the Wizard of Finance between them, and they were marching
him up to the University. He was taken along much as is an arrested man
who has promised to go quietly. They kept their hands off him, but they
watched him sideways through their spectacles. At the least sign of
restlessness they doused him with Latin. The Wizard of Finance, having
been marked out by Dr. Boomer and Dr. Boyster as a prospective
benefactor, was having Latin poured over him to reduce him to the
proper degree of plasticity.

They had already put him through the first stage. They had, three days
ago, called on him at the Grand Palaver and served him with a pamphlet
on "The Excavation of Mitylene" as a sort of writ. Tomlinson and his
wife had looked at the pictures of the ruins, and from the appearance
of them they judged that Mitylene was in Mexico, and they said that it
was a shame to see it in that state and that the United States ought to
intervene.

As the second stage on the path of philanthropy, the Wizard of Finance
was now being taken to look at the university. Dr. Boomer knew by
experience that no rich man could look at it without wanting to give it
money.

And here the president had found that there is no better method of
dealing with businessmen than to use Latin on them. For other purposes
the president used other