Will you allow me to sit down?
Suppose we go into the vestry.

It is more comfortable.' They entered the vestry, and seated themselves in two chairs, one at each end of the table.
'In the meantime,' continued Dare, 'to lend a little romance to stern realities, I'll tell you a singular dream I had just before you returned to England.' Power looked contemptuous, but Dare went on: 'I dreamt that once upon a time there were two brothers, born of a Nonconformist family, one of whom became a railway-contractor, and the other a mechanical engineer.' 'A mechanical engineer--good,' said Power, beginning to attend.
'When the first went abroad in his profession, and became engaged on continental railways, the second, a younger man, looking round for a start, also betook himself to the continent.

But though ingenious and scientific, he had not the business capacity of the elder, whose rebukes led to a sharp quarrel between them; and they parted in bitter estrangement--never to meet again as it turned out, owing to the dogged obstinacy and self-will of the younger man.

He, after this, seemed to lose his moral ballast altogether, and after some eccentric doings he was reduced to a state of poverty, and took lodgings in a court in a back street of a town we will call Geneva, considerably in doubt as to what steps he should take to keep body and soul together.' Abner Power was shooting a narrow ray of eyesight at Dare from the corner of his nearly closed lids.

'Your dream is so interesting,' he said, with a hard smile, 'that I could listen to it all day.' 'Excellent!' said Dare, and went on: 'Now it so happened that the house opposite to the one taken by the mechanician was peculiar.