"You! You have seen it?"
"Why, I invented it!"
Dick hastily withdrew his arm from Leonard's.
"Serpent's tooth!" he said falteringly, "so it is you, whom I warmed at my hearth, who are to ruin Richard Avenel?"
"No; but to save him! Come into the City and look at my model. If you like it, the patent shall be yours!"
"Cab, cab, cab," cried Dick Avenel, stopping a "Ransom; "jump in, Leonard,-jump in. I'll buy your patent,—that is, if it be worth a straw; and as for payment—"
"Payment! Don't talk of that!"
"Well, I won't," said Dick, mildly; "for 't is not the topic of conversation I should choose myself, just at present. And as for that black-whiskered alligator, the baron, let me first get out of those rambustious, unchristian, filbert-shaped claws of his, and then—but jump in! jump in! and tell the man where to drive!"
A very brief inspection of Leonard's invention sufficed to show Richard Avenel how invaluable it would be to him. Armed with a patent, of which the certain effects in the increase of power and diminution of labour were obvious to any practical man, Avenel felt that he should have no difficulty in obtaining such advances of money as he required, whether to alter his engines, meet the bills discounted by Levy, or carry on the war with the monster capitalist. It might be necessary to admit into partnership some other monster capitalist—What then? Any partner better than Levy. A bright idea struck him.
"If I can just terrify and whop that infernal intruder on my own ground for a few months, he may offer, himself, to enter into partnership,—make the two concerns a joint-stock friendly combination, and then we shall flog the world."