"What sort of invention? A new invention?"
"It would have to be new or it wouldn't be an invention at all."
"But what is it for?"
"For the benefit of mankind, like all great inventions."
"It seems to me that some of the best have been for the benefit of boykind," said Ned. "But what is the use of trying to be too smart? Let us know what it is. We're not likely to steal it, as Lem Woodruff thinks the patent-lawyer stole his idea for a double-acting washboard."
Phaeton was silent, and worked away. Ned and I walked out at the gate and turned into the street, intending to go swimming. We had not gone far when Phaeton called "Ned!" and we turned back.
"Ned," said he, "don't you want to lend me the ten dollars that Aunt Mercy gave you last week?"
Their Aunt Mercy was an unmarried lady with considerable property, who was particularly good to Ned. When Phaeton was a baby she wanted to name him after the man who was to have been her husband, but who was drowned at sea.
Mrs. Rogers would not consent, but insisted upon naming the boy Fayette, and Aunt Mercy had never liked him, and would never give him anything, or believe that he could do anything good or creditable. She was a little deaf, and if it was told her that Phaeton had taken a prize at school, she pretended not to hear; but whenever Ned got one she had no trouble at all in hearing about it, and she always gave him at least a dollar or two on such occasions. For when Ned was born she was allowed to do what she had wanted to do with Fayette, and named him Edmund Burton, after her long-lost lover. Later, she impressed it upon him that he was never to write his name E. B. Rogers, nor Edmund B. Rogers, but always Edmund Burton Rogers, if he wanted to please her, and be remembered in her will. She never called him anything but Edmund Burton. Whereas, she pretended not to remember Fayette's name at all, and would twist it in all sorts of ways, calling him Layit and Brayit, and Fater and Faylen, and once she called him Frenchman-what's-his-name, which was as near as she ever came to getting it right.
"Why should I lend you my ten dollars?" said Ned. "For the information you kindly gave us about your invention?"