On another occasion, while taking lunch at a railroad station in
France, Mr. Maxim recognized a notorious confidence man who had, years
before, robbed him in Paris. The fellow, seeing that he was detected,
tried to escape by leaping upon a moving train. Maxim followed and a
fierce struggle ensued on the footboard of the coach, while the train
was running at a high speed. Maxim had to fight both the fellow and
his comrades, but he subjugated his man. The train was brought to a
standstill, and the victor marched his prisoner back over the ties
to the station, delivering him to the authorities, and subsequently
had the satisfaction of seeing him sentenced to several years at hard
labor. This was one result of the backwoods training in Maine.
“Whatever job I was at,” Mr. Maxim told me, “I used to work at and
think of day and night. I talked shop in season and out. If I was given
work that was not good enough for me, I would do it so well and so
quickly that they thought I was worthy of something better. No matter
where I was, I managed, somehow, to get to the top. I noticed, the
first thing, that the majority of the men around me were poor and the
few rich; and I knew, of course, that the methods of the former were
wrong, and that, consequently, the way to succeed was to follow the
latter.”
“When did you first begin to invent?”
“Almost before I learned to walk. When I went to work, I began to study
out ways of improving tools and appliances.”