use. Gorman made money, considerable sums of money. I know
this because he called on me one morning in the middle of July and
told me so. He did more. He offered me a very substantial and quite
unanswerable proof that he felt rich.

"If you don't mind," he said, "I'd like to pay you whatever you've spent
on this new invention of Tim's."

"I haven't spent anything," I said. "I've invested a little. I believe
in Tim's new cinematograph. I expect to get back every penny I've
advanced to him and more."

This did not satisfy Gorman. He got out his cheque book and a fountain
pen.

"There was the hundred pounds you gave him to buy looking glasses," he
said. "You didn't give him more than that, did you?"

"Not so much," I said. "The bill for those mirrors was only L98-7-6; and
I made the man knock off the seven and sixpence as discount for cash.
I'm learning to be a business man by degrees."

Gorman wrote down L98 on the cover of his cheque book.

"And the hire of the hall?" he said. "What will that come to?"

I had hired a small hall for the exhibition of Tim's moving picture
ghosts. I had invited about a hundred people to witness the show. Gorman
himself, a brother of the inventor, had promised to preside over the
gathering and to make a few introductory remarks on the progress of
science or anything else that occurred to him as appropriate to such
an occasion. But I could not possibly allow him to pay for the
entertainment.

"My dear Gorman," I said, "it's my party. The people are my friends. At
least some of them are. The invitations have gone out in my name. You
might just as well propose to pay for the tea I mean to offer them to
drink as for the hire of the room in which I am going to receive them."

"Will L150 cover the whole show?" said Gorman.

"If you insist on heaping insults on my head," I said, "I shall retire
into a nursing home and cancel all the invitations."

"You're an obstinate man," said Gorman.

"Very. In matters of this kind."

"All the same," said Gorman, "I'll get rid of that money. I don't
consider it's mine. I ought to have paid for Tim, and I would, only that
I hadn't a penny at the time."

"If you like to give L150 to a charity," I said, "that's your affair."

"That," said Gorman, "would be waste. I rather think I'll give a party
myself."

He slipped his cheque book back into his pocket.

"Invite me to meet the lady who acts in your play," I said.

"Miss Gibson?" said Gorman.