It goes without saying that Jimmy was present at the show. He was smashed before he had even begun! There, before his eyes, was his own invention worked by another! He had expected competition, of course; it was impossible, he knew, to discover anything that wasn’t copied at once; snatchers of ideas, who prowl around artistes, plagiarists, pirates, swarmed as thick as any other sort of thieves. And, as ill luck would have it, though his turn was difficult to perform, the apparatus, at least, was simple to construct: four powerful springs, screwed down with a jack, which the weight of the leaping cyclist, as he fell upon each pedestal, released one after the other, causing him to take enormous jumps forward. It was an ideal breakneck machine, easy to carry about; only the calculations had been difficult. They had cost him a lot of trouble to establish; and now another was profiting by them! Perhaps some one had patented the invention before him! For he, too, before showing it in public, had patented it in England and Germany; and his anger knew no bounds, his energy was increased fourfold when he learned the name of the plagiarist: Trampy again! Trampy, who had stolen his love, who had stolen his Lily ... and who was now stealing his idea ... robbing him of the fruit of his labor! Jimmy, in spite of his fury, resolved to keep calm: the law first. He was protected by the law, unless—and that was impossible—unless Trampy had had the same idea as himself before him and taken out his patents before the publication in Engineering. Jimmy showed a prompt decision, a feverish activity. First of all, he must put the law in motion, bring an action against Trampy, telegraph to the patent office at Washington to ascertain the date. Meanwhile, he made his first appearance on the day fixed for it. His success was even greater than Trampy’s; his leaps were twice as wide, more in accordance with his courage. The way in which he “bridged the abyss,” in the huge hall where he gave his show, was enough to prove that he was the inventor, the creator, the great, typical, daring performer, who, disclaiming death, marches to glory and fortune even as heroes, flag in hand, rush to the assault under fire.
It was a bolt from the blue for the Kaiserin when the little paper arrived, the injunction against “Arching the Gulf.” A steamer caught in a cyclone would undergo much the same disablement, under a sea sweeping her from stem to stern, swamping the saloons, drowning the very rats in the hold. Jimmy’s active inquiries had not taken long: telegram followed upon telegram; the British consul woke up. The law at Washington was formal and precise: nothing could be patented that had been known, or used, or published before the patent was applied for. Now the article in Engineering, of course, appeared prior to the step taken by Trampy. And in Germany, also, Jimmy won his case; the court found in favor of the absolute novelty of the invention. The Kaiserin could not give its performance short of paying five hundred marks a night to its rival, the Kolossal. This meant the wreck of “Arching the Gulf;” and Trampy came down with it. For a few days, he led a terrible life, a desperate struggle, made efforts in every direction; but, at last, worried, hustled, driven to bay, Trampy disappeared into the darkness, while Jimmy, freed from this enervating opposition and feeling sure of himself henceforward, gained fresh courage, added another arch to “Bridging the Abyss.”
It was done, he had made his start, he had a name, he was the man who draws crowds; he received brilliant proposals from all sides, from the Western Trust, among others. He felt himself somebody; and money also was coming in. He could at last realize what he had in his head ... in the absence of love there would be fame ... oh, something a thousand times more sensational than “Bridging the Abyss,” more modern, more scientific, something which he confided to nobody, which he kept locked up in his brain, in his heart, like a love passion, a thing which would be his alone, this time, which no one could take from him! For it would not be a question of a spring and a click, only. The thing moved in his breast, lived in his brain. When he thought of it, his cheeks became hollow with ambition, his eyes lit up. He seemed to tower over immense perspectives; and, from that height, Trampy appeared to him so small, so small, so really small that he felt his anger decrease. And then there was Lily! To send Trampy to his wife with a black eye or a bloody nose, to turn the husband into an object of ridicule to his wife, that was impossible for him; it would have shown lack of respect for Lily, poor darling; he would not humiliate her in her man! She loved him, perhaps, in the illusion of her seventeen years! Hurt her? Never! Jimmy wiped the episode from the slate; hard as it was, he forgave that highway robber, in the name of his dead love.
Ah, if he could have seen Lily when Trampy was driven to confess his discomfiture to her! He would have been revenged offhand! Lily seethed with rage against her husband, that footy rotter! What! Was that his great scheme? Did he call that an idea? How often had not Jimmy spoken to her about it! It was pinned on the wall, it lay about in the Gresse Street workshop for months. She remembered seeing the plans, the diagrams, the drawings in the papers. Jimmy had explained everything to her at the time when he was still a josser. And Trampy had stolen it from him, stolen it, stolen it! Oh, he would make her die of shame!
It was a terrible dispute, a real “playing humanity,” with threats, clenched fists, broken crockery strewing the floor.
“To humiliate me like that before Jimmy!” said Lily, furious.
“Drop that about Jimmy!” snarled Trampy, green with jealousy. “I won’t have you mention him!”
“I shall mention him if I like! Jimmy is a son of a gun! Very well! But he’s a man! He’s worth two of you.”
Trampy strode up to her with his fist raised.
“If you touch me,” cried Lily, seizing the lamp, “if you touch me, I’ll smash it over your head!”