I had my sister’s orphans to protect and my bread to win. The bigger the crowd, the more to pay tribute to an Orson like myself. I fancied that I could mine to more advantage in New York than at the Foolonner. There are sixpences in the straw of every omnibus for somebody to find.
I am not to maunder about myself. So I omit the story how I saw a vista in new life, hewed in and took up a “claim,” which I have held good and am still improving.
Meantime nothing from Brent,—nothing from Miss Clitheroe. I grew bitterly anxious for both,—the brother and the sister of my adoption. These ties of choice are closer than ties of blood, unless the hearts are kindred as well as the bodies. My sister Ellen, chosen out of all womanhood and made precious to me by the agony I had known for her sake,—I could not endure the thought that she had forgotten me; still less the dread that her father had dragged her into some voiceless misery.
And Brent. I knew that he did not write, because he must thus set before his eyes in black, cruel words that his pursuit had been vain. The love that conquered time and space had beaten down and slain Brutality,—was it to be baffled at last? I longed to be with him, lending my cruder force to his finer skill in the search. Together we might prevail, as we had before prevailed. But I saw no chance of joining him. I must stay and earn my bread at my new business.
Nothing, still nothing from the lady or the lover, and I suffered for both. I wrote Brent, and re-wrote him; but no answer.
That winter, my old friend Short perfected his famous Cut-off. Everybody now knows Short’s Cut-off. It saves thirty per cent of steam and fifty per cent of trouble and wear and tear to engineer and engine.
Short burst into my office one morning. He and Brent and I, and a set of other fellows worth knowing, had been comrades in our younger days. We still hold together, with a common purpose to boost civilization, so far as our shoulders will do it.
“Look at that,” cried Short, depositing a model and sheets of drawings on my table. “My Cut-off. What do you think of it?”
I looked, and was thrilled. It was a simple, splendid triumph of inventive genius,—a difficulty solved so easily, that it seemed laughable that no one had ever thought of this solution.
“Short,” said I, “this is Fine Art. Hurrah for the nineteenth century! How did you happen to hit it? It is an inspiration.”