Mollie Merk looked at him, vague memories of one James Watts stirring uneasily in her brain.
"There's a good deal written about steam," she said, sympathetically.
"I'll bring you a book on it."
She did, for Harrington was already high in her regard; and quite possibly the volume killed in that youth's aspiring soul the germ of a beautiful hope. But he was to the fore very soon with a discovery of equal weight. This time his confidant was Maxwell.
"Why is it," he asked that busy citizen one evening, "that when I get in the bathtub the water rises highah? Ain't the' some principle the' that is impo'tant? As I think it ovah—"
Maxwell hurriedly assured him that there was, and the volume on steam was followed by a treatise on specific gravity, which gave Mr. Harrington food for reflection for several days. Nevertheless, the discovery that others had been before him did not depress him in the least. He gave the Sunday editor an insight into his views on one occasion when that gentleman was able to convince him that Isaac Newton and not Bart Harrington had discovered the law of gravitation while watching an apple fall from a tree.
"I obse'ved it, too, suh," argued Harrington, sturdily, defending his position as a scientific discoverer. "Of co'se I see the fo'ce of you'h rema'k that the othah man was first. That is unfo'tunate foh me. But does it affect the value of my discovery? It does not, suh."
"There's a good deal in it," Wilson conceded to Maxwell, after he had delightedly repeated this conversation. "Of course, the fellow has an unusual mind. It's a pity he's always a few hundred years behind the time, but, as he hints, that needn't dim our admiration for the quality of his brain fibre."
Maxwell laughed uneasily.
"I can't make up my mind," he admitted, in his turn, "whether he's a genius or a plain fool. He lost his dinner last night explaining to me how the power of Niagara could be applied to practical uses. He was horribly depressed when I told him it not only could be, but was. I let him talk, though, to see what his ideas were, and they were very practical."
"I call that mighty encouraging," said the chief, optimistically. "He's getting down to modern times. After he has discovered the telephone and telegraph and cable and wireless telegraphy he may tackle telepathy and give us something new."