Page:Anthony John (IA anthonyjohn00jero).pdf/155

 would have brought him fame when it was too late. He'd never have made any real solid success. At that kind of work I couldn't help him; and, left to himself, he isn't the sort that ever does get on. At this work of schoolmastering I can help him. He has the talent and I have the business capacity. I've no use for dreamers. My father was a dreamer. He discovered things in chemistry that, if he had followed them up, would have made his fortune. They bored him. He was out for discovering a means of changing the atmosphere. I don't remember the details. You released a gas, or you eliminated a gas, or you introduced a gas. It was all about gases. That's the only thing I do remember. People instead of breathing in depression and weariness breathed in light-heartedness and strength. It sounds like a fairy story, but if you'd listened to him you'd have been persuaded it was coming, that it was only a question of time, and that when the secret was discovered the whole human race would be feeling like a prisoner who had escaped from a dungeon. That was his dream. And to him it was possible. It was for the sake of that dream that he took the position of science master at St. Aldys at a hundred and sixty a year. It gave him leisure for research. And we children paid the price for it. Both my brothers were