“Time does not greatly matter,” he murmured. “Only one thing really matters at all.”
“And that?”
“The expense.”
We stared at him, somewhat perplexed.
“Permit me to explain,” he went on, still gazing at me alone with his beseeching eyes. “I have invented an automobile—not strictly an automobile, it is true; but for want of a better name I will call it that. I have been years experimenting and building it, for it is all the work of my own hands and the child of my exclusive brain. It is now just finished—complete in every part—but I find that I have exhausted nearly every available dollar of my money. In other words, sir, my machine has bankrupted me.”
He paused, and catching a wink from Mr. Harlan I said in an amused tone:
“That is an old story, sir.”
“You doubt it?”
“No; I mean that it is quite natural.”
“Perhaps,” he replied. “You see I had not thought of money; merely of success. But now that at last I have succeeded, I find that I have need of money. My only relative is a rich uncle living at Pasadena, California, who is so eccentric in his disposition that were I to appeal to him for money he would promptly refuse.”