"I've had it," says he. "Briscoe is final enough for me."

"You're easy satisfied," says I, "or else you're easy beat. I didn't take you for a quitter, either."

Say, that got to him. "Quitter, eh!" says he. "See here, Son, how long do you think I've been plugging at this thing? Nine years. And for the last four I've been giving it all my time, day in and day out, and many a night as well. I've been living with it, in this loft here, like a blessed hermit; testing and perfecting, trying out my processes, and fighting the Patent Office sharks between times. Nine years—the best of my life! Call that quitting, do you?"

"Well, that is sticking around some," says I. "Think you've got your schemes so they'll work?"

"I don't think," says he; "I know."

"But what's the good," I goes on, "if you can't make other folks see you've got a good thing?"

"I can, though," he says. "Why, any person with even ordinary intelligence can——"

"That's me," says I. "My nut is just about27 a stock pattern size, six and seven-eighths, or maybe seven. Come, try it on me, if it's so simple. Now what about this retort business?"

27

That got him goin'. Rowley drops the potatoes, and in another minute we're neck-deep in the science of makin' an ore puddin', doin' stunts with the steam, skimmin' dividends off the pot, and coinin' the slag into dollars.

I ain't lettin' him slip over any gen'ral propositions on me, either. I'm right there with the Missouri stuff. He has to go clear back to first principles every time he makes a statement, and work up to it gradual. Course, I was keepin' him jollied along too, and while it must have been sort of hopeless at the start, inoculatin' a cauliflower like mine with higher chemistry, I fin'lly showed one or two gleams that encouraged him to keep on. Anyway, we hammered away at the subject, only stoppin' to make coffee and sandwiches, until near two o'clock in the mornin'.

"Help!" says I, glancin' at the nickel alarm clock. "My head feels like a stuffed sausage. A little more, and I won't know whether I'm a nitrous sulphide or a ferrous oxide of bromo seltzer. Let's take the rest in another 

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