“As a pledge for its final payment. I care nothing for the trumpery, while you, I know, do. When you come forward and pay the note, you shall have it back again.”
“Do you promise that?” asked the inventor, more cheerfully.
“I will agree to wait a reasonable time.”
Little ceremony was used in the removal of the complicated machinery. Within ten minutes, all that had so fully occupied the thoughts of Mr. Ford, and furnished the pleasure and the occupation of his quiet life, was swept away, and he was left alone. That the labor was to no purpose, and the hopes which he cherished vain, imported little. To him, at least, they were realities, and upon them he had built a dazzling superstructure, which now suddenly crumbled into pieces at his feet.
Lewis Rand’s triumph was thus far complete.
CHAPTER XXIV.
HELEN’S GOOD FORTUNE.
Mr. Bowers, the manager, sat at his desk in the little office adjoining the stage, running his eye over a manuscript play presented for examination by an ambitious young man in spectacles.
“Bah!” said the manager, tossing aside the play after a very brief examination, “what can the man be thinking of? Two murders in the first act, and a suicide in the first scene of the second! Such an accumulation of horrors will never do. Here, Jeffries.”
The messenger made his appearance, and stood awaiting orders.
“Here,” said Mr. Bowers, tossing the play towards him, “just do this thing up, and when the author calls this afternoon, tell him from me that it is a very brilliant production, and so on, but, like Addison’s Cato, for example, not adapted for dramatic representation. That will sugar the pill.”