“True invention,” said he, “whether literary or mechanical, is the highest and hardest effort of the mind. It is an operation so absorbing that it often weakens those pettier talents which make what we call the clever man. Therefore the inventor should ally himself with some person of talent and energy, but no invention. Thus supported, he can have his fits of abstraction, his headaches, his heartaches, his exultations, his depressions, and no harm done; his dogged associate will plow steadily on all the time. So, after all, your requiring capital is no great misfortune; you must look out for a working capitalist. No sleeping partner will serve your turn; what you want is a good rich, vulgar, energetic man, the pachydermatouser the better.”
Henry acted on this advice, and went to London in search of a moneyed partner. Oh, then it was he learned—
“The hell it is in suing long to bide.”
He found capitalists particularly averse to speculate in a patent. It took him many days to find out what moneyed men were open to that sort of thing at all; and, when he got to them, they were cold.
They had all been recently bitten by harebrained inventors.
Then he represented that it was a matter of judgment, and offered to prove by figures that his saw-grinding machines must return three hundred per cent. These he applied to would not take the trouble to study his figures. In another words, he came at the wrong time. And the wrong time is as bad as the wrong thing, or worse.
Take a note of that, please: and then forget it.
At last he gave up London in despair, and started for Birmingham.
The train stepped at Tring, and, as it was going on again, a man ran toward the third-class carriage Little was seated in. One of the servants of the company tried to stop him, very properly. He struggled with that official, and eventually shook him off. Meantime the train was accelerating its pace. In spite of that, this personage made a run and a bound, and, half leaping, half scrambling, got his head and shoulders over the door, and there oscillated, till Little grabbed him with both hands, and drew him powerfully in, and admonished him. “That is a foolhardy trick, sir, begging your pardon.”
“Young man,” panted the invader, “do you know who you're a-speaking to?”