make it appear they were
not."

"By George!" exclaimed the storekeeper, "I never have done that. I 'll
begin to-morrow."

"Thanks, I should if I were you. Good-night."

Armitage passed into the shop and switched on an electric light over a
long pine table in the centre of the apartment. Then he went to the
safe, opened it, and returned to the table with an armful of rolled
parchment and specifications. These he spread out and thereafter,
while the night waned, he was lost to the world and its affairs.

Briefly, Armitage had invented a torpedo, whose steering was so
controlled by delicate magnetos, that while ordinarily proceeding in
the line of aim, if such aim, through the movement of the vessel aimed
at, or through some other cause, should result in a miss, the effect of
the steel hull of the objective ship on the delicate magnetos of the
Armitage torpedo would be such as to cause a change in the course of
the deadly missile, and have her go directly toward the vessel and even
follow her.

Armitage, whose mechanical genius had marked him while at the Academy
as a man of brilliant possibilities, had developed his idea in the
course of several years, and when it was perfected in his mind he had
gone to the Chief of Ordnance at Washington and laid the matter before
him in all its details. The chief at once gave the lie to the theory
long current that the Department was averse to progress along whatever
line, by expressing unqualified delight. He had Armitage ordered to
the Torpedo Station at Newport to carry on experiments forthwith, and
instructed the superintendent of the station to give the inventor every
facility for carrying on his work. Two months had already elapsed and
the work was at the stage when a destroyer and a practice torpedo boat
had been detached from regular duty and placed at his exclusive service.

The Government was deeply interested in the progress of the work, and
had shown it in many ways. The significance of such a torpedo in any
war in which the country might become involved was patent. Rumors more
or less vague had leaked, as such things do, to foreign war offices,
and there was not a naval _attache_ at Washington but had received
imperative orders to leave nothing undone by which the exact nature of
the torpedo and its qualifications might be ascertained. But neither
Armitage nor the Department had any idea of permitting the slightest
information regarding the invention to es