Allerton sat down.
“The despatches you brought,” said he, “conveyed to me some joyful news. I have been granted a three months’ leave of absence.”
As he paused I remarked, speaking for us all:
“You are to be congratulated, Lieutenant. Isn’t that a rather unusual leave?”
“Indeed it is,” he returned, laughingly. “I’ve been trying for it for nearly two years, and it might not have been allowed now had I not possessed an influential friend at Washington—my uncle, Simeon Wells.”
“Simeon Wells!” ejaculated Uncle Naboth. “What, the great electrician who is called ‘the master Wizard’?”
“I believe my uncle has gained some distinction in electrical inventions,” was the modest reply.
“Distinction! Why, I’m told he can skin old Edison to a frazzle,” remarked Archie, who was not very choice in his selection of words, as he rolled over upon his back and looked up at the officer wonderingly. “Didn’t Wells invent the great storage battery ‘multum in parvo’, and the new aeroplane motors?”
“Uncle Simeon is not very ambitious for honor,” said Mr. Allerton quietly. “He has given the government the control of but few—a very few—of his really clever electrical devices. His greatest delight he finds in inventing. When he has worked out a problem and brought it to success he cares little what becomes of it. That, I suppose, is the mark of an unpractical genius—unpractical from a worldly sense. Still, his relations with the government, limited as they are, proved greatly to my advantage; for when he found my heart was set on this leave of absence, he readily obtained it.”
“The request of Simeon Wells ought to accomplish much more than that, considering his invaluable services,” I suggested.