“I’ll tell you what I would do,” he cried. “I am prepared to put that
magnet in Hetty’s bonnet, and to let you fire six shots straight at her
face. How’s that for a test? You wouldn’t mind, Hetty? Eh, what!”
“I don’t think she would have objected, but I hastened to disclaim any
share in such an experiment.
“Of course, you see that the whole thing is to scale. My warship of the
future carries at her prow and stern a magnet which shall be as much
larger than that as the big shell will be larger than this tiny bullet.
Or I might have a separate raft, possibly, to carry my apparatus. My
ship goes into action. What happens then, Munro? Eh, what! Every shot
fired at her goes smack on to the magnet. There’s a reservoir below into
which they drop when the electric circuit is broken. After every action
they are sold by auction for old metal, and the result divided as prize
money among the crew. But think of it, man! I tell you it is an absolute
impossibility for a shot to strike any ship which is provided with my
apparatus. And then look at the cheapness. You don’t want armour. You
want nothing. Any ship that floats becomes invulnerable with one of
these. The war ship of the future will cost anything from seven pound
ten. You’re grinning again; but if you give me a magnet and a Brixton
trawler with a seven-pounder gun I’ll show sport to the finest
battle-ship afloat.”
“Well, there must be some flaw about this,” I suggested. “If your magnet
is so strong as all that, you would have your own broadside boomeranging
back upon you.”
“Not a bit of it! There’s a big difference between a shot flying away
from you with all its muzzle velocity, and another one which is coming
towards you and only needs a slight deflection to strike the magnet.
Besides, by breaking the circuit I can take off the influence when I
am firing my own broadside. Then I connect, and instantly become
invulnerable.”
“And your nails and screws?”
“The warship of the future will be bolted together by wood.”
Well, he would talk of nothing else the whole evening but of this
wonderful invention of his. Perhaps there is nothing in it--probably
there is not; and yet it illustrates the many-sided nature of the man,
that he should not say one word about his phenomenal success here--of
which I am naturally most anxious to hear--not a word either upon the
important subject of our partnership, but will think and talk of nothing
but this extraordinary naval idea. In a week he will have tossed it
aside in all probability, and be immersed in some plan for reuniting the
Jews and settling them in Madagascar. Yet from all he has said, and all
I have seen, there can be no doubt that he has in some inexplicable way
made a tremendous hit, and to-morrow I shall let you know all about
it. Come what may, I am delighted that I came, for things promise to be
interesting. Regard this not as the end of a letter, but of a paragraph.
You shall have the conclusion to-morrow, or on Thursday at the latest.
Goodbye, and my remembrance to Lawrence if you see him. How’s your
friend from Yale?