ng
I wanted to speak to you about."

"Oh, is there?" and Peer sat down as far as conveniently possible from
the other.

"I've noticed, even in the few times we've happened to meet, that you
don't like me. Well, you know, that's a thing I'm not going to put up
with."

"What do you mean?" asked Peer, hardly knowing whether to laugh or not.

"I want to be friends with you, that's all. You probably know a good
deal more about me than I do about you, but that need not matter.
Hullo--do you always drum with your fingers on the table like that?
Ha-ha-ha! Why, that was a habit of my father's, too."

Peer stared at the other in silence. But his fingers stopped drumming.

"I rather envy you, you know, living as you do. When you come to be a
millionaire, you'll have an effective background for your millions. And
then, you must know a great deal more about life than we do; and the
knowledge that comes out of books must have quite another spiritual
value for you than for the rest of us, who've been stuffed mechanically
with 'lessons' and 'education' and so forth since we were kids. And now
you're going in for engineering?"

"Yes," said Peer. His face added pretty clearly, "And what concern is it
of yours?"

"Well, it does seem to me that the modern technician is a priest in
his way--or no, perhaps I should rather call him a descendant of old
Prometheus. Quite a respectable ancestry, too, don't you think? But has
it ever struck you that with every victory over nature won by the human
spirit, a fragment of their omnipotence is wrested from the hands of
the gods? I always feel as if we were using fire and steel, mechanical
energy and human thought, as weapons of revolt against the Heavenly
tyranny. The day will come when we shall no longer need to pray.
The hour will strike when the Heavenly potentates will be forced to
capitulate, and in their turn bend the knee to us. What do you think
yourself? Jehovah doesn't like engineers--that's MY opinion."

"Sounds very well," said Peer briefly. But he had to admit to himself
that the other had put into words something that had been struggling for
expression in his own mind.

"Of course for the present we two must be content with smaller things,"
Ferdinand went on. "And I don't mind admitting that laying out a bit of
road, or a bit of railway, or bridging a ditch or so, isn't work that
appeals to me tremendously. But if a man can get out into the wide
world, there are things enoug