"It's a fine idea," said Mr. Pedagog, "and one worthy of your mammoth intellect. It couldn't possibly cost more than a million of dollars to erect such a hotel, could it?"
"No," said the Idiot. "And that is cheap alongside some of the hotels they are putting up nowadays."
"It could be built on less than four hundred acres of ground, too, I presume?" said the Bibliomaniac, with a wink at the Doctor.
"Certainly," said the Idiot, meekly.
"And if anybody fell sick in one of the rooms," said the Doctor, "and needed a change of air, you could have a tower over each, I suppose, so that the room could be elevated high enough to secure the different quality in the ether?"
"Undoubtedly," said the Idiot. "Although that would add materially to the expense. A scarlet-fever patient, however, in a hotel like that could very easily be isolated from the rest of the house by the maintenance of what might be called the hospital floor."
"Superb!" said the Doctor. "I wonder you haven't spoken to some architectural friend about it."
"I have," said the Idiot. "You must remember that young fellow with a black mustache I had here to dinner last Saturday night."
"Yes, I remember him," said the Doctor. "Is he an architect?"
"He is—and a good one. He can take a brown-stone dwelling and turn it into a colonial mansion with a pot of yellow paint. He's a wonder. I submitted the idea to him."