The man had actually bribed the master of the works to accept him as an apprentice, and he had made an exceedingly good one. He was at the works at the regular hour, and stayed as late as the latest. And he developed wonderful genius in the way of mechanics, and was in a fair way to arrive at a high position in the business.
The workmen idolized him. He delighted to go with them evenings to the cafés they frequented, to be a little king among them; he helped the sick and unfortunate; he took some interest in their concerns, and they in turn did everything possible to acquaint him with the practical part of the trade.
“They are a much better lot,” he said, “than the leeches who used to hang upon me.”
He invited me to dine with him one day, and the amount of coarse food he could consume—this man who had not had an appetite for twenty years—was something wonderful.
For the first time in his life, he declared, he was absolutely happy. He had something to do.
Before he had been in the shop a week he showed the master how the iron bar could be forged to the shape required, and how two-thirds of the time at the machine could be saved, and he succeeded in having his system introduced.
He vows that he will stick to it till he has learned his trade, then go home to New York and start the most perfect machine shop on the continent, and that, moreover, he will be perfectly happy therein. He is not ennuied any more, for he has found something to do. There are others who would do well to follow his example.
CHAPTER XXXII.
CHILLON AND OTHER POINTS.
ON a clear bright day, the hot air tempered by a gentle breeze wafted down from the ice-covered mountains, with others we left Geneva, to cross the mountains and visit Mont Blanc, that patriarch of the Alps. The blue waters of Lake Geneva danced and sparkled in the sunlight as our steamer sped along towards Nyon.
At last we were skimming over the surface of that wonderful body of water whose peans have for hundreds of years been sung by the poets, in prose and verse, of all countries. Rosseau, Voltaire, Byron, Goethe have revelled in the delights of its tranquil beauty and celebrated its charms in immortal words. And it is indeed a fitting theme for a poet’s song. To-day its deep blue surface is broken into a myriad of ripples. Here and there, sailing slowly along, are large barges with the graceful lateen sails that are seldom seen except upon the Mediterranean. The shores are lined with rich foliage, the cedar of Lebanon mingling its sweet odor with that of the chestnut, the walnut and the magnolia, the whole enlivened with pretty villas and picturesque hamlets.