"Pshaw! I should have told you a lot of things that would have helped you," exclaimed the Dean when Roger had finished. "But one forgets up here in the classroom how the war rages out in the industrial world."
"Will patents cost a lot?" inquired Ernest. "You know I don't use all my salary. Draw at will, old man."
"Thanks, old top," replied Roger. "Since I cut out girls and golf, I've been saving a bit myself."
"The patents won't cost a great deal, if you do the work yourself, Roger," said the Dean. "But it's going to take time to learn the patent game."
"Well," said Roger, with a sigh, "if I've got to become a patent attorney in order to patent my ideas, I suppose I can. But gee, I am glad I don't want to get married. You were wise in not letting me give up that instructorship, Dean, as I wanted to."
Dean Erskine smiled ruefully. "Seems to have been about the only sane advice I've given you."
"Don't you think it, sir!" exclaimed Roger. "If I ever do get away with this, yours will be the credit."
"And Ernest's," added the Dean.
"You bet, Ernest! And now, I'm going out to the University library and read up on patents," said Roger, with the familiar squaring of the shoulders.
He had need to square his shoulders: a greater need than either he or his two devoted friends could dream. For as the months slipped into years, it seemed more and more obvious that either Roger's ideas were utterly impractical or else that he was actually several generations ahead of his time. In his brilliant, yet thoroughgoing way, Roger studied patent law and registered two years after his trip to Chicago as a patent attorney in Washington. He worked constantly on the development of his plant, improving here, discarding there, until he had reached the point, he felt, where he could do no more until he had funds for a practical plant, in a hot climate.