hat it means. Watch 'em blight Denny Hogan's lungs down
on the dump; watch 'em burn 'em up and crush 'em in the mines--by
evading the mining laws; watch 'em slaughter 'em on the railroads;
murder is cheap in this country--if you control government and get a
slaughter license."

The Doctor laughed. "That's the old century--and say, Cap--I'm with the
new. You know old Browning--he says:

"It makes me mad
To think what men will do an' I am dead."

The Doctor waved his cane furiously, and grinned as he threw back his
head, laughed silently, kicked out one leg, and stood with one eye
cocked, looking at the speechless Captain. "Well, Cap--speak up--what
are you going to do about it?"

"'Y gory, Doc, you certainly do talk like a Populist--eh?" was all the
Captain could reply. The Doctor toddled to the door, and standing there
sang back: "Well, Cap--do you think the Lord Almighty laid off all the
angels and quit work on the world when he invented Tom Van Dorn's
automobile--that it is the last new thing that will ever be tried?"

And with that, the Doctor went out into the alley and through his alley
gate into his house. But the Captain's mind was set going by the
Doctor's parting words. He was considering what might follow the
invention of Tom Van Dorn's automobile. There was that chain, and there
was his sprocket. It would work--he knew it would work and save much
power and much noise. But the sprocket must be longer, and stronger.
Then, he thought, if the wire spokes and the ball-bearing and rubber
tires of the bicycle had made the automobile possible, and now that they
were getting the gasoline engine of the automobile perfected so that it
would generate such vast power in such a small space--what if they could
conserve and apply that power through his invention--what if the
gasoline engine might not through his Household Horse some day generate
and use a power that would lift a man off the earth? What then? As he
tapped the bolts and turned the screws and put his little device
together, he dreamed big dreams of the future when men should fly, and
the boundaries of nations would disappear and tariffs would be
impossible. This shocked him, and he tried to figure out how to prevent
smuggling by flying machines; but as he could not, he dreamed on about
the time when war would be abolished among civilized men, because of his
invention.

So while he was dreaming in matter--forming the first vague nebulae of