Arthur Ensign, an aged inventor, and his wife live together in poverty so that Bessie, their daughter, may receive an education. Ensign has long been working to develop a powerful explosive. His reputation as chief chemist for the nation years ago makes his investigations the more important. Bessie writes to her aged parents that following her approaching graduation, she will marry Lieutenant Leighton. Financial affairs for Arthur Ensign and his wife go from bad to worse, and finally he is obliged to sell the stove from their home in order to obtain food. Part of this money goes for chemicals. By an accident Ensign discovers a formula for “Trixite,” which, through the medium of ether waves, can be exploded at almost any desired locality. Ensign interests the war department in his new explosive. It is the more timely, because the government is worried because of inadequate defenses of the country against possible enemies. The discovery of Trixite is tested and proves a success, and Mr. and Mrs. Ensign are enabled to live more comfortably. Ensign dreams that his country is occupied by an enemy. As a last resort Ensign uses the ether wave, which checks the oncoming enemy and kills human beings by the thousands. However, his triumph becomes bitterness when he finds that through his invention his son-in-law has met death and that his beloved daughter has succumbed to grief beside the body of her husband on the stricken battlefield. Ensign awakens from the nightmare. Lieutenant Leighton and Bessie visit her aged parents unannounced. Bessie tells her father that she has married Lieutenant Leighton and that they are very happy. The vividness of Ensign’s dream has made such an impression upon him that he is hardly able to realize that his daughter and her husband are standing before him. As Arthur Ensign and his wife warmly greet Lieutenant Leighton and his pretty wife, agents for the government enter. They inform Ensign that his discovery of Trixite has been accepted and they assure the aged man that fame and fortune are to be his. And then the aged inventor reaches for the precious formula holding the secret of Trixite, and he slowly tears to pieces the formula to which he has devoted a lifetime in discovering. He says: “I would rather live in poverty than live in wealth stained by the blood of mankind.”