"You are surely not going to have a fever?" asked Mrs. Manning anxiously, skilled in fever symptoms, as are all dwellers on that shore.
"No; I have been a little overturned in mind this afternoon, that is all," replied Bro. Then, with a shadow of importance, "I am obliged to write to Washington."
"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Manning, for once assuming the position of questioner.
"I have invented a—screw," he answered, hesitatingly—"a screw, which young Mr. Vickery thinks a good one. I am going to apply for a patent on it."
"Dear me! Apply for a patent? Do you know how?"
"Yes, I know how," replied the inventor quietly.
Marion was looking at him in surprise.
"You invented the screw, Ambrose?"
"Yes, Miss Marion." Then, unable to keep down his feelings any longer—"But there is a valve also," he added with pride, "which seems to me more important; and there is a self-register."
"Lawrence was over there this evening, was he not? And you showed him your inventions then?"