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96 transaction, and of course I shan't throw away any more good money on it."

"I was thinking," said Frank, "that with a little modification—Improvement, you know? maybe it might be made to work satisfactorily."

Mr. Morton made such an excited jump straight towards his young visitor that Frank was rather startled.

"Young man," he said, very solemnly, "if you want me to lose all the really profound admiration I feel towards you for the business-like way in which you have managed things, don't, for mercy's sake, tell me that you have been bitten, too, with the fatal, crazy, irrational dream that you want to invent something!"

"Why," said Frank, with a smile, "is it as bad as that?"

"Worse!" declared Mr. Morton, with a comical groan. "Get the patent bee in your bonnet, and you're lost, doomed!" in a mock-hollow tone observed Mr. Morton, shaking Frank by the arm. "Drop it, drop it, or you're on the rocks."

"Then," suggested Frank, "you won't mind if I experiment with the corer?"

"Mind? I wish you'd sink it. I wish I could forget the money I lost in it. It's yours, though, if you want it, only never mention that an old