“You know I told you he was employed in a cotton manufactory when a young man. This made him familiar with spinning and weaving. He thought he could make an improvement in some of the machinery used and he worked out his idea in a wooden model.”
“Have you the model?” asked Cameron, with interest.
“Yes, sir, and also a written paper describing the invention. A few days before he died father called me to his bedside and told me that he wanted me some day to show his invention to a manufacturer and get his opinion of it. He said that he hoped some time it would be a source of profit to mother and myself.”
“Have you ever done as he advised?” asked Cameron.
“I have never had opportunity. There is no manufacturing town near here and I cannot afford to travel.”
“I am myself the son of a cotton manufacturer,” said Cameron, “and, though I have never been employed in the business, I have from my boyhood been accustomed to visit my father's factory. My opinion may be worth something, therefore. If you are willing to show me your father's model—”
“I shall be very much obliged to you if you will look at it,” said Herbert. “I have been afraid that father exaggerated its value and that it might have defects which would prevent its being adopted anywhere.”
“I will give you my opinion when I have seen it. And now suppose we set to work. Here is a treatise on logic. You may begin and read it very slowly, pausing at the end of every paragraph till I tell you to go on.”
Herbert began to read as he had been requested. For the first two or three times he took very little interest in his subject and thought it very dry. In fact, it was not all he began to re-read the earlier portions that he could comprehend much of it.
“Now,” said Cameron, after he had read half an hour, “I have something else for you to do. You are not only my reader, but I must make you my teacher, too.”