“Please fix it so as to make one exception,” the boy pleaded.  As Gorham looked at him for explanation, he drew Alice closely to him.  “Please let this monopoly be exempt from governmental interference.”

A stifled sob, entirely out of place in the presence of such general rejoicing, came from a little human ball rolled up on the steps below them.  Eleanor and Allen quickly sprang toward her, but the boy better understood Patricia’s tears.  He sat beside her, and wrapped his great arms around her.

“Don’t cry, Lady Pat,” he entreated.

“I can’t help it,” she moaned.  “I haven’t any Sir Launcelot, and you haven’t stormed the castle, and I’ve lost my silken ladder, and I want to die so that I can go up to heaven and be mean to the angels.”

“Oh, no, no!” he begged.  “I’ve tried to think it all out, and the only thing I can do is to cut myself in two pieces the way King Solomon decided to do with the baby.  Do you remember?”

“But he didn’t do it,” replied Patricia, showing surprising knowledge of the Scriptures.

“Well, I haven’t done it yet—­but I will if you say so.”

“Will you really?” The child’s mind was already diverted from its tragedy.  “But then you couldn’t wear armor or ride a horse, or storm a castle, or do any of those things.”

“Not without messing everything all up,” Allen admitted, sorrowfully; “but that’s the best thing I can think of.”

Patricia was seized with an inspiration.  “Will you swear to be my Knight every time Alice is mean and horrid to you?”

“I swear,” Allen responded in a sepulchral voice, his eyes laughing at the older girl above him.

“Then I’ll get you most of the time,” Patricia announced, joyfully; and she suffered herself to join the group in the hallway.

“So you have decided to abandon your business career?” Gorham asked, turning to Alice.

“No, daddy,” she replied, slyly.  “I’m just changing my company from a private corporation into a partnership.”

Gorham drew her to him and kissed her tenderly.  Then he held out his disengaged hand to Allen.

“The world is before you.  From the time it was created, man has striven to force from it the secret of unlimited power.  Events have sometimes seemed to give encouragement, but ever at the end of each seeming success has come the unmistakable warning of a wisely jealous God.  Omnipotence is not for mortals.  The only lever which really moves the world is love, and it rests on a fulcrum of honor.”

THE END