OUR FORTUNE. 443
and I was glad to see Harry rouse from his melancholy to smile at my effort at decoration.
He cut two golden wedges, and was just going to lay down the knife, when I stopped him.
“Cut another, Harry,” I said. “There’s a dear.”
He glanced at me a little suspicious. “For baby? Maybe she won’t waken tonight again. Besides, it ain’t good for her.”
“Not for baby,’ I answered, with a little quiver in my voice that I could not subdue, “for the poor old man up in the garret. Oh, Harry! we are poor, but we have each other. Think what it must be to be all alone, with no one to remind him of the holy season; no voice to wish him a ‘Happy Christmas;’ and as I spoke, I pointed to the inscription within the wreath, ‘Peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Harry did not need much persuasion. His is not a nature to bear malice; besides, the sharp winds of adversity which had blown around us lately, had, in a great measure, dispelled the clouds of prejudice and suspicion through which he formerly viewed our unsocial neighbor.
Leaving Vivia sleeping sweetly, we ascended the stairs, knocked, and were cordially welcomed by the old gentleman. It was quite a contrast to the last time we had gone there together. We had evidently been expected; and Harry noticing this, looked at me for explanation; but I strove to appear perfectly innocent and unconscious, though, in my confusion, I almost forgot to offer the plate of cake I held in my hand—the ostensible object of our visit.
After the usual compliments of the season had been exchanged, and when the conversation begun to grow genial and unconstrained, our host asked if he might relate a portion of his history, and we acquiescing, he began:
“I cannot remember the period when I was not a dreamer, nor, on the other hand, can I recollect a time when there was not method in my madness. From my earliest boyhood I have been possessed of a mania for invention—that insatiable craving which leads so many, I had almost said innocently, to ruin. It was this uncontrollable propensity that made me a careless scholar, a burden and mortification to my friends, and finally drove me forth a self-exiled wanderer on the earth. And yet, looking back now, I think I can say truly, that my wildest dreams were never unmingled with the hope; of improving my kind—of aiding struggling humanity.
“I will not weary you by speaking of the early and unsettled portion of my career. It contained the usual chaotic mass of boyish schemes, and is as well forgotten. For the last fifteen years I have had one definite object before me, which I have steadily pursued amid such buoyant hopes and crushing defeats, anxious longing and grinding poverty, as those who have followed a similar ignis fatuus may know.
At last,” and here the old man’s eyes flashed with the true fire of genius, ‘at last success has come; but, like all earthly success, it comes too late—too late, at least, to admit of my carrying it forward unaided, as I once hoped to do. My desire, therefore, is to obtain a young and active partner; and knowing, Mr. Lawrence, that you are at present unemployed, I have ventured to hope that I might find such in you. I may add, frankly, that it is less any knowledge I have of your character and ability, than my grateful friendship for your wife which prompts the proposal; and now, if you have no objection, will you look at my model?”
Slowly, almost reverently, as one approaches a shrine, he lifted the old checked cover, and there, in all its curious combination of polished wood and burnished metal, stood the finished dream of fifteen years.
‘What was it?” did you say? I wish I might tell you—I would like to; but you know, ever since Americus Vespucius, instead of Columbus, gained the credit of finding this continent, there has been danger in talking loosely about discoveries; besides, Harry might not like it. Let it suffice to say, that it was not a humbug; that it was one of those great labor-saving blessings which, in these latter days, are always at hand to counterbalance the vials of wrath poured forth by the angel of the Apocalypse, and then imagine it to be whatever machine affords you the most comfort and delight. Perhaps it is its cheery, busy presence in your home that now gives you leisure to read my story.
It certainly seemed a very curious piece of mechanism, as we examined it there by candle- light. As the immortal Mr. Weller would have said, there were ‘‘Veals within veals;” and, altogether, it was far beyond my comprehension.
But Harry caught the idea at once, and, what was of more importance, recognized the availability; and, long after I had gone down stairs to baby, he sat discussing ways and means with his attic-neighbor.
There was another surprise for us all, which came out a day or two later; when the talk about the invention having given place to more desultory conversation, some of our kind old friend’s remarks concerning his youth, led Harry to recognize him as the runaway uncle of whom his mother had often spoken. As her
