and that half the population would die of hunger.  To secure himself, he began to lay in the stock of tinned provisions.  One can’t help laughing, poor old chap!  That’s the result, you see, of a life spent in sweating for money.  As a young man he had hard times, and when his invention succeeded, it put him off balance a bit.  I’ve often thought he had a crazy look in his eye.  He may have thrown away a lot of his money in mad tricks:  who knows?”

“That’s the end the human race will come to,” said Hilliard.  “It’ll be driven mad and killed off by machinery.  Before long there’ll be machines for washing and dressing people—­machines for feeding them—­machines for——­”

His wrathful imagination led him to grotesque ideas which ended in laughter.

“Well, I have a year or two before me.  I’ll know what enjoyment means.  And afterwards——­”

“Yes; what afterwards?”

“I don’t know.  I may choose to come back; I may prefer to make an end.  Impossible to foresee my state of mind after living humanly for a year or two.  And what shall you do if you come in for a lot of money?”

“It’s not likely to be more than a few thousands,” replied Narramore.  “And the chances are I shall go on in the old way.  What’s the good of a few thousands?  I haven’t the energy to go off and enjoy myself in your fashion.  One of these days I may think of getting married, and marriage, you know, is devilish expensive.  I should like to have three or four thousand a year; you can’t start housekeeping on less, if you’re not to be bored to death with worries.  Perhaps I may get a partnership in our house.  I began life in the brass bedstead line, and I may as well stick to brass bedsteads to the end the demand isn’t likely to fall off.  Please fill my glass again.”

Hilliard, the while, had tossed off his second tumbler.  He began to talk at random.

“I shall go to London first of all.  I may go abroad.  Reckon a pound a day.  Three hundred and—­how many days are there in a year?  Three hundred and sixty-five.  That doesn’t allow me two years.  I want two years of life.  Half a sovereign a day, then.  One can do a good deal with half a sovereign a day—­don’t you think?”

“Not very much, if you’re particular about your wine.”

“Wine doesn’t matter.  Honest ale and Scotch whisky will serve well enough.  Understand me; I’m not going in for debauchery, and I’m not going to play the third-rate swell.  There’s no enjoyment in making a beast of oneself, and none for me in strutting about the streets like an animated figure out of a tailor’s window.  I want to know the taste of free life, human life.  I want to forget that I ever sat at a desk, drawing to scale—­drawing damned machines.  I want to——­”

He checked himself.  Narramore looked at him with curiosity.

“It’s a queer thing to me, Hilliard,” he remarked, when his friend turned away, “that you’ve kept so clear of women.  Now, anyone would think you were just the fellow to get hobbled in that way.”