“Give Mr. Heron the best the house affords, and put it on my bill,” he added. I protested, whereupon he touched my arm and said: “You will find, sir, that nobody will take your money in this town. If you will walk with me, I will show you my factory.”
I asked for my friend Pearl, and McCarthy said that Pearl and Barker were in New York, and were coming to Rushwater in a day or two. The inventor had worked awhile in the shop, and planned a lot of machines which had hastened the process of manufacture. In June he had drawn his pay and left suddenly for parts unknown.
“I think that he went to the war,” said Mr. McCarthy; “but he never let on. Said he'd turn up here one of these days, and last week I got a long letter from the old man. Said he'd been sick, and was ready to come back to the shop if I wanted him. Of course, I said come on. We made our way through dark streets and stopped in front of a building—large for that day and country—on the river shore.
“There it is,” he remarked, as we gazed for half a moment at the dim outlines of his building. “I am the most extensive shipper of small freight on the railroad.”
We entered the building, and he led me to his office and lighted a lamp. It was a large room, elegantly furnished. The chairs and table were made of mahogany and a soft carpet covered the floor. A large portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte hung on the wall.
Those days the face and story of “The Little Corporal” were a power in the land, and not the most wholesome one, I have thought.
“This is grand,” was my remark.
“I am making money,” said the hand-made gentleman, “and I propose to look as prosperous as I am. Sal is now the smallest part of my business. I spend twenty thousand a year advertising. My harp has four strings and one tune. Here it is.”
The hand-made gentleman began to read from a newspaper as follows: