mine," repeated the charlatan. "Do you get that 'and mine'?
That means the employees of the Certina factory. Now, if I quit making
Certina, what about them? Shall I turn them out on the street?"

"I hadn't thought of that," admitted the girl blankly.

"Business can be altruistic as well as practical, you see," he observed.
"Well, I've worked out a scheme to take care of that. Been working on it
for months. Certina is going to die painlessly. And I'm going to preach
its funeral oration at the factory on Monday. Will you come, and make
Hal come, too?"

In vain did Esme employ her most winning arts of persuasion to get more
from the wily charlatan. He enjoyed being teased, but he was obdurate.
Accordingly she promised for herself and Hal.

But Hal was not as easily persuaded. He shrank from the thought of ever
again setting foot in the Certina premises. Only Esme's most artful
pleading that he should not so sorely disappoint his father finally won
him over.

At the Certina "shop," on the appointed day, the fiances were ushered in
with unaccustomed formality. They found gathered in the magnificent
executive offices all the heads of departments of the vast concern, a
quiet, expectant crowd. There were no outsiders other than Hal and Esme.
Dr. Surtaine, glossy, grave, a figure to fill the eye roundly, sat at
his glass-topped table facing his audience. Above him hung Old Lame-Boy,
eternally hobbling amidst his fervid implications.

Waving the newcomers to seats directly in front of him, the presiding
genius lifted a benign hand for silence.

"My friends," he said, in his unctuous, rolling voice, "I have an
important announcement to make. The Certina business is finished."

There was a silence of stunned surprise as the speaker paused to enjoy
his effect.

"Certina," he pursued, "has been the great triumph of my career. I might
almost say it has been my career. But it has not been my life, my
friends. The whole is greater than the part: the creator is greater than
the thing he creates. They say, 'Surtaine of Certina.' It should be,
'Certina of Surtaine.' There's more to come of Surtaine."

His voice dropped to the old, pleading, confidential tone of the
itinerant; as if he were beguiling them now to accept the philosophy
which he was to set forth.

"What is life, my dear friends? Life is a paper-chase. We rush from one
thing to another, Little Daisy Happiness just one jump ahead of us and
Old Man Death grabbing at