At the little station of Sardis, in the hill country of New Jersey,
Roland Clewe alighted from the train, and almost instantly his hand
was grasped by an elderly man, plainly and even roughly dressed, who
appeared wonderfully glad to see him. Clewe also was greatly pleased at
the meeting.
“Tell me, Samuel, how goes everything?” said Clewe, as they walked off.
“Have you anything to say that you did not telegraph? How is your wife?”
“She's all right,” was the answer. “And there's nothin' happened,
except, night before last, a man tried to look into your lens-house.”
“How did he do that?” exclaimed Clewe, suddenly turning upon his
companion. “I am amazed! Did he use a ladder?”
Old Samuel grinned. “He couldn't do that, you know, for the flexible
fence would keep him off. No; he sailed over the place in one of those
air-screw machines, with a fan workin' under the car to keep it up.”
“And so he soared up above my glass roof and looked down, I suppose?”
“That's what he did,” said Samuel; “but he had a good deal of trouble
doin' it. It was moonlight, and I watched him.”
“Why didn't you fire at him?” asked Clewe. “Or at least let fly one of
the ammonia squirts and bring him down?”
“I wanted to see what he would do,” said the old man. “The machine he
had couldn't be steered, of course. He could go up well enough, but the
wind took him where it wanted to. But I must give this feller the credit
of sayin' that he managed his basket pretty well. He carried it a good
way to the windward of the lens-house, and then sent it up, expectin'
the wind to take it directly over the glass roof, but it shifted a
little, and so he missed the roof and had to try it again. He made two
or three bad jobs of it, but finally managed it by hitchin' a long cord
to a tree, and then the wind held him there steady enough to let him
look down for a good while.”
“You don't tell me that!” cried Clewe. “Did you stay there and let him
look down into my lens-house?”
The old man laughed. “I let him look down,” said he, “but he didn't see
nothin'. I was laughin' at him all the time he was at work. He had his
instruments with him, and he was turnin' down his different kinds of
lights, thinkin', of course, that he could see through any kind of
coverin' that we put over our machines; but, bless you! he couldn't do
nothin', and I could almost hear him swear as he rubbed his eyes after
he had been lookin' down for a little while.”
Clewe laughed. “I see,” said he. “I suppose you turned on the
photo-hose.”
“That's just what I did,” said the old man. “Every night while you were
away I had the lens-room filled with the revolving-light squirts, and
when these were turned on I knew there was no gettin' any kind of rays
through them. A feller may look through a roof and a wall, but he can't
look through light comin' the other way, especially when it's twistin'
and curlin' and spittin'.”
“That's a capital idea,” said Clewe. “I never thought of using the
photo-hose in that way. But there are very few people in this world who
would know anything about my new lens machinery even if they saw it.
This fellow must have been that Pole, Rovinski. I met him in Europe, and
I think he came over here not long before I did.”
“That's the man, sir,” said Samuel. “I turned a needle searchlight
on him just as he was givin' up the business, and I have got a little
photograph of him at the house. His face is mostly beard, but you'll
know him.”
“What became of him?” asked Clewe.
“My light frightened him,” he said, “and the wind took him over into the
woods. I thought, as you were comin' home so soon, I wouldn't do nothin'
more. You had better attend to him yourself.”
“Very good,” said Clewe. “I'll do that.”
The home of Roland Clewe, a small house plainly furnished, but good
enough for a bachelor's quarters, stood not half a mile from the
station, and near it were the extensive buildings which he called his
Works. Here were laboratories, large machine-shops in which many men
were busy at all sorts of strange contrivances in metal and other
materials; and besides other small edifices there was a great round
tower-like structure, with smooth iron walls thirty feet high and
without windows, and which was lighted and ventilated from the top.
This was Clewe's special workshop; and besides old Samuel Block and such
workmen as were absolutely necessary and could be trusted, few people
ever entered it but himself. The industries in the various buildings
were diverse, some of them having no apparent relation to the
others. Each of them was expected to turn out something which would
revolutionize something or other in this world, but it was to his
lens-house that Roland Clewe gave, in these days, his special attention.
Here a great enterprise was soon to begin, more important in his eyes
than anything else which had engaged human endeavor.
When sometimes in his moments of reflection he felt obliged to consider
the wonders of applied electricity, and give them their due place in
comparison with the great problem he expected to solve, he had his
moments of doubt. But these moments did not come frequently. The day
would arrive when from his lens-house there would be promulgated a great
discovery which would astonish the world.
During Roland Clewe's absence in Germany his works had been left under
the general charge of Samuel Block. This old man was not a scientific
person; he was not a skilled mechanic; in fact, he had been in early
life a shoemaker. But when Roland Clewe, some five years before, had put
up his works near the little village of Sardis, he had sent for Block,
whom he had known all his life and who was at that time the tenant of a
small farm, built a cottage for him and his wife, and told him to take
care of the place. From planning the grounds and superintending fences,
old Sammy had begun to keep an eye upon builders and mechanics; and,
being a very shrewd man, he had gradually widened the sphere of his
caretaking, until, at this time, he exercised a nominal supervision
over all the buildings. He knew what was going on in each; he had a
good idea, sometimes, of the scientific basis of this or that bit of
machinery, and had gradually become acquainted with the workings and
management of many of the instruments; and now and then he gave to his
employer very good hints in regard to the means of attaining an end,
more especially in the line of doing something by instrumentalities not
intended for that purpose. If Sammy could take any machine which had
been constructed to bore holes, and with it plug up orifices, he would
consider that he had been of advantage to his kind.
Block was a thoroughly loyal man. The interests of his employer were
always held by him first and above everything. But although the old man
understood, sometimes very well, and always in a fair degree, what the
inventor was trying to accomplish, and appreciated the magnitude and
often the amazing nature of his operations, he never believed in any of
them.
Sammy was a thoroughly old-fashioned man. He had been born and had grown
up in the days when a steam-locomotive was good enough and fast enough
for any sensible traveller, and he greatly preferred a good pair of
horses to any vehicle which one steered with a handle and regulated the
speed thereof with a knob. Roland Clewe might devise all the wonderful
contrivances he pleased, and he might do all sorts of astonishing things
with them, but Sammy would still be of the opinion that, even if the
machines did all that they were expected to do, the things they did
generally would not be worth the doing.
Still, the old man would not interfere by word or deed with any of the
plans or actions of his employer. On the contrary, he would help him in
every possible way--by fidelity, by suggestion, by constant devotion
and industry; but, in spite of all that, it was one of the most firmly
founded principles of his life that Roland Clewe had no right to ask him
to believe in the value of the wild and amazing schemes he had on hand.
Before Roland Clewe slept that night he had visited all his workshops,
factories, and laboratories. His men had been busily occupied during
his absence under the directions of their various special managers, and
those in charge were of the opinion that everything had progressed as
favorably and as rapidly as should have been expected; but Roland Clewe
was not satisfied, even though many of his inventions and machines
were much nearer completion than he had expected to find them. The work
necessary to be done in his lens-house before he could go on with the
great work of his life was not yet finished.
As well as he could judge, it would be a month or two before he could
devote himself to those labors in his lens-house the thought of which
had so long filled his mind by day, and even during his sleep.