Then John explained that he had been privately working for a long time at a scheme of which his mind was very full. And he gave on the spot an account of it which made the junior partner open his eyes.
‘If you’ve done that, my boy, you’ve made your fortune, and ours too,’ he said, listening with great attention to John’s exposition.
‘That’s what I hope, sir,’ the young man said, with all the confidence of youth.
Mr. William Barrett listened half-bantering, half-believing. To think of so young a man having hit upon an expedient which had baffled so many older brains, seemed to him half-incredible, and he laughed and rubbed his hands even while he seriously inclined to hear all the details of the scheme.
‘It all depends upon whether it’s practicable,’ he said. ‘Do you know the lie of the country? Have you calculated the cost even of what will be required as a basis of operations?’
‘I have calculated everything,’ said John, with that enthusiastic conviction which is so contagious. Mr. Barrett looked in his face with a laugh, half-sceptical, half-sympathetic.
‘I like young men to think well of their own schemes,’ he said; ‘and I like them to plan big works even if they should never come to anything. Show me your papers——’
‘I am having them copied out. I am making the statement as clear as possible. I will bring them as soon as they are ready.’
‘Oh, they are not ready, then!’ Mr. Barrett cooled perceptibly. ‘You should not have said anything about it until they were in a state to be inspected—copying was not necessary—the rough notes are what I should have liked to see. You had better go off to Hampstead at once, and when you have finished that job you can bring me your plan, if it is ready then. There may be something in it—one can never tell.’
John felt that this was a very summary dismissal after the gleam of favour with which he had been regarded. He felt as if the plan which had been so much in the forefront of his imagination had been cast all at once into the background, which discouraged him for the moment: all the more that his own judgment agreed with what his chief said, and he felt now that it would have been better to place the scribbles of his rising invention before the experienced eyes which could see at a glance what was practicable in them, instead of the fair copy written out in a strange hand, which his impulse in favour of poor March had alone moved him to make. However, he set out at once for Hampstead, according to his orders, and there forgot his discouragement, and even, for a time, his great scheme, in the counter excitement of bringing order out of chaos. There is a certain satisfaction in finding that a piece of business has been horribly mismanaged, when one feels that one can put it all right. For some days John was fully occupied with this work, with scarcely time even to think of anything else. He got home at night late and very tired with his day’s work, feeling able for little more than to give a glance at what March had been doing and to feel the comfort and satisfaction of having an amanuensis who arranged his papers so carefully and copied so neatly, in a handwriting, which, John remarked with surprise, was very like though better than his own. Everything was carefully arranged in the most orderly manner, the scraps of calculation in their proper succession, and the work going on, though slowly. It was indeed going on very slowly, and John never found his secretary at work when he returned: but he reflected that in all likelihood that philosopher, left to himself, took things easily; and there was no hurry: and he was too tired in the evenings when he came back from his work to give his full attention to anything else.