l for Shrimp Davis
and the Triumphant Egghead, who had legs educated for the ballroom, but
he, John C. Bedelle, had other missions to perform in this life which
held such short years for a man of imagination.

For several days he sought diligently among the needs of human nature
for something on the grand scale. He tried his hand at a
perpetual-motion machine. He thought out a combination submarine and
airship which would put the navies of the world at the mercy of his
country. He even descended to such trivial abstractions as a Reversible
Shirt-Front, which took its due place in the book of inventions under
the following entry:

REVERSIBLE SHIRT-FRONT

Argument: Admitted that Reversible Shirt-Fronts
are easy to manufacture; what demand would there
be for them? Could they be popularized among the
working classes? Treat cuffs same way.

For certain reasons he decided not to discuss this last invention with
Snorky Green. These tentative efforts were but exercising his
imagination. He knew it and waited breathlessly.

But at last, a month after the failure of the Foot-Regulator, the
long-awaited thrill arrived, the thrill which comes only with the
possession of a Universal Idea, and for the first time in his long,
untroubled fifteen years, it arrived in conjunction with the intrusion
into his still simple scheme of things of that arch-disturber--WOMAN.

Miss Virginia Dabtree was not destined to occupy the proud place of the
first love, though Miss Dabtree (who was Snorky Green's aunt) was
eminently equipped for such a position, being eighteen years his senior
and at an age when by instinct, habit, and a need of self-encouragement,
any tribute from the opposite sex, no matter how given, caused her not
the slightest irritation.

Skippy, however, was too completely dazzled by the consummate artistry
of Miss Dabtree's clinging toilettes, the built-up luxuriousness of her
hair, the pink and white complexion, the stenciled eyebrows, and the
Lady Vere de Vere attitudes to dare to entertain a personal hope.

He was dazzled, dumfounded! A new world opened to him. Through her at
last he perceived woman, her place in the now more complex scheme of
things, the influence she could exert, the stimulus to the imagination,
and the answer to his need of some guiding purpose.

True, Miss Dabtree's age was her protection. She was removed from even
the flights of his imag