me sheepish, and Ferrier at last said to
himself, "One might do anything with these men! The noblest raw material
in the world."

"Good-night; good-night. God bless you." One weird sound after another
came from boats that swam in the quivering moonbeams. Then came the
silence, broken only by the multitudinous whistling of the gaffs, and
the gentle moan of the timbers.

The nightly talk came off as usual; and also as usual the great
mathematician was forced to take the leading part, while Blair quizzed,
and the ladies, after the fashion of their sex, stimulated the men to
range from topic to topic. Fullerton was watching Ferrier, just as I
have seen a skilful professor of chemistry watching a tube for the first
appearance of the precipitate. This quiet thinker knew men, and he knew
how to use them; moreover, he thought he saw in Ferrier a born king, and
he strove to attract him just as he had striven to fascinate Miss
Dearsley. It was for the cause.

"What do you think of our work so far, Ferrier?"

"Good. But I want more."

Then, of course, Blair must needs have one of those wonderful jokes of
his. "Ha! I want more! A sort of scientific Oliver. I want more! What a
Bashaw! And what does his highness of many tails want?"

"Mr. Ferrier mustn't be too exorbitant. Science wears the seven-league
boots, but we have to be content with modest lace-ups and Balmorals,"
quietly observed Mrs. Walton.

"Oh! beautiful! A regular flash of--the real thing, don't you know. An
epigram. Most fahscinating! Oh-h!"

Poor Tom's elephantine delight over anything like a simile was always
emphatic, no matter whether he saw the exact point or not, and I'm
afraid that brilliant folk would have thought him perilously like a
fool. Happily his companions were ladies and gentlemen who were too
simple to sneer, and they laughed kindly at all the big man's
floundering ecstasies.

Ferrier said, "When I have got what I want, I shall vary your programme
if you will permit me. Do you know, it struck me that those good souls
are very like a live lizard cased in the dry clay? He fits his mould,
but he doesn't see out of it. I should like to give the men a little
wider horizon."

"Isn't heaven wide enough?"

"But your men are always staring _up_ at heaven. Could you not give them
a chance of looking _round_ a bit?"

"What are you driving at?"

"Mr. Ferrier means that they do not employ all their faculties. They are
going cheerfully through a l