"Well, what?" asked Marcus Wilkeson, laughing in anticipation.
"Ha! ha! cut it up, and sold it for window curtains. A friend of mine, who passed through there the other day, says there's a picture of a lion, or a palm tree, or a slice of a desert--principally desert--hung up in every other window. And the best of it is, that they made a good thing of it. The curtains brought at least twice what I owed them. Great heavens! why didn't I think of it myself?"
"Of what?"
"Why, to cut up the panorama into window curtains, when Patching had finished it, and--ha! ha!--peddle them through the country. By Jupiter! that speculation may be worth trying yet. But at present I have my new patent process for----"
Marcus coughed, and opened the book. Tiffles accepted the delicate hint in a spirit of true friendship, and let his new patent process drop.
"Marcus," said he, "I don't wish to revive an unpleasant subject; but have you no idea what the late Mr. Minford was trying to invent?"
"Not the least. I never trouble myself about inventions, as you well know, who are full of them. Besides, poor Mr. Minford was not communicative on that subject. He kept the secret even from his daughter."
"You have a claim on the apparatus, whatever it is."
"Yes. Mr. Minford insisted on giving me a paper to that effect, as security for two loans of five hundred dollars each. I took it to please the old gentleman." Marcus felt like groaning, as he thought of the sorrows that he had derived from his connection with the Minford family; but he had just been reading of the consolations of philosophy, and he stifled the rising weakness.
"I have thought, Marcus, that there might be something about that unfinished machine that could be patented for the benefit of Miss Minford. You know I am a good judge of patentable things."