“Oh, just an old electrical device—you probably wouldn’t understand the workings of it—to be used in connection with wireless apparatus. It was a thing for recording vibrations and by its use a deaf man could receive wireless messages. I worked four years perfecting it and then thought my fortune was made. But nobody would back me on it. They all laughed at the thing. I got so disgusted one day that I threw the thing into the sad sea. Four years’ work went up at one splash! That was the end of my career as an inventor.”
Poor Justice! I sympathized with him so hard that I hardly knew what to say. I knew what that failure must have meant to his proud, sensitive soul. The first failure is always such a blow. It takes considerable experience in failing to be able to do it gracefully. I could see that he didn’t want any voluble sympathy from me and that it was such a sore subject that he’d rather not talk about it. I didn’t know what to say. Then my eye fell on the sheets on the table. “What are you inventing now?” I asked, to break the silence that was growing awkward.
“Just working on bits of things,” he replied, “to pass the time away. You can’t experiment with wireless now, you know.”
The confidences Justice had made to me almost drove my errand out of my head. It was rather breathless, this having a new side of him turn up every little while. I returned to my original quest for information.
“I came for expert advice,” I remarked.
Justice looked up inquiringly. “Shoot,” he said.
“Do you suppose,” I inquired in a perplexed tone, “that they’d enjoy it just as much if the costumes have to be imaginary?”
Justice’s face suddenly became contorted. “They’d probably enjoy wearing, ah—er imaginary costumes if the weather is warm enough,” he replied, carefully avoiding my eye.
“Justice Sherman!” I exploded, laughing in spite of myself. “You know very well what I mean. I mean can we have a Ceremonial Meeting in blue calico and imagine it’s Ceremonial costumes?”
Justice scratched his head. “It depends upon how much imagination ‘we’ have,” he remarked. “Now, for instance, I know someone not a hundred miles from here who can imagine herself in her college room when it’s only make believe, and can do wonderful work in French and mathematics. She——”