“The motor which you thought of, and which I reduced to practice—call it what you like.”
“I call it the Brown-Pericord Motor,” cried the inventor with an angry flash of his dark eyes. “You worked out the details, but the abstract thought is mine, and mine alone.”
“An abstract thought won’t turn an engine,” said Brown, doggedly.
“That was why I took you into partnership,” the other retorted, drumming nervously with his fingers upon the table. “I invent, you build. It is a fair division of labour.”
Brown pursed up his lips, as though by no means satisfied upon the point. Seeing, however, that further argument was useless, he turned his attention to the machine, which was shivering and rocking with each swing of its arms, as though a very little more would send it skimming from the table.
“Is it not splendid?” cried Pericord.
“It is satisfactory,” said the more phlegmatic Anglo-Saxon.
“There’s immortality in it!”
“There’s money in it!”
“Our names will go down with Montgolfier’s.”