Citric Acid.
A London chemist was the inventor of citric acid, and, having his own prices as long as the way of making the acid was a secret, realized a large fortune.
This chemist trusted nobody, but worked entirely alone. He thought his secret very safe. It was necessary, however, to have a chimney to his laboratory, and chimneys sometimes want sweeping.
A rival, disguising himself as a chimney-sweep, got into the sanctum. He had all his eyes about him, as the saying is, and, when the chimney was swept, knew how to make citric acid, and thus a monopoly was ended.
A Half-Starved Tramp.
Mr. Huntsman, who had devised some important processes in the manufacture of cast steel, built his factory, to be out of observation, in the middle of a bleak moor, and "No Admission for Strangers" was painted on the outer gate.
One terribly snowy night, however, a poor, belated, half-frozen traveler, who said he had lost his way on the moor, craved shelter, was charitably admitted, and was placed near the furnace, to be thawed. He watched what was done, and, being an expert, took it all away in his mind. Next morning he walked away, and took the secret with him. So perished Huntsman's El Dorado.
Fiddling to some Purpose.
Stourbridge, a smoky town in Worcestershire, England, has long been famous for its iron, glass and fire-brick works, and also for its nails, as long as they were produced by hand-work. For the Crystal Palace, of 1851, a Stourbridge "hand" received an order to make a thousand gold and a thousand silver and a thousand iron tacks—the whole three thousand not to weigh more than three grains.