It could be seen from Egholm’s movements how a knight and his lady were wont to prance and preen themselves before a mirror. A little after, he added in a voice of mystery:
“I have often seen shadows moving by in there, of an evening.”
“Ugh! The nasty thing! I wouldn’t have it in my house for anything,” said Madam Hermansen, with a shiver.
XIV
Egholm took his washing-basin across to the studio, which had been fitted up at one end of the carpenter’s store shed. The jelly-fish he placed for the present as far in under the table as possible.
First of all, he must get some work done. There were Sunday’s negatives to develop—he could be thinking a bit while he was doing that. Egholm found the new dark-room an excellent place for thought, free from all disturbance.
Yes, he would think over that turbine.
That jelly-fish soap business was merely an idea—quite possibly, indeed probably, a good idea. But the turbine, the reversible steam-turbine, was the child of his heart, born of him, conceived by him in a length of sleep-forsaken nights. Once brought forth to the world, it would be greeted with acclamation.
It was imminent, it was hovering in the air, this question of something to replace the more complicated steam-engine. The English had come very near to a solution already.