with him, for when he had taken stock of his little luxuries he treated them to a long malediction, the scope and elaboration of which would have surprised him in other days.
****
Necessity, which is stronger than the Gods, knows no law, and is also the mother of invention. She is fruitful in stirring the pontifical instinct, the soul of the builder, of the contriver, in man.
Necessity awoke that primal power in the starved Higginsonian soul. When the Professor of Subliminal Consciousness had prowled round and round the room like a caged carnivorous thing some twenty times, seeking an outlet, harbouring disordered schemes, a clear idea suddenly lit up his cloudy mind.
It was glass again! The skylight was made of glass, and glass is a fragile thing!
He stood with his hands in his trouser pockets looking up to that large, slanting window in the roof and taking stock. It was made to open, but the iron rod which raised and lowered it had been disconnected and taken away. He thought he could perceive in certain small dots far above him the heads of screws recently driven in to secure the outer
