ed.

'Neither have I,' said William. (I didn't doubt that for an instant.)
He went on to remark that he knew many men in many walks of life, and
only two of them owned a trousers-press, and they shared it between
them. Yet the inventor of this apparently negligible article had made
a small fortune out of the idea.

'If,' concluded William, 'you can make a small fortune out of a thing
that you can dispense with, how much more can you make out of something
that you can't do without?'

This sentence I give as William composed it, and from its construction
you will understand the state of his mind, for he was as fastidious
regarding style as Henry himself. Of course there was some excuse for
him. You see, when you're an inventor you can't be anything else. It
takes all your time. Judging by William's procedure you must sit up
experimenting all night long; you lie down in your clothes and snatch a
little sleep at odd moments. When you walk abroad you stride along
muttering, waving your arms and bumping into people; you forget to eat;
your friends fall away from you. Let me advise parents who are
thinking of a career for their sons never to make inventors of them.
It's a dog's life. Far better to put them to something with regular
hours, say from 10.30 to 4 o'clock, which leaves them with the evenings
free.

William wouldn't divulge what his invention was, because, he said, he
was afraid of the idea getting about before he took out the patent. He
merely told us it was a device which no man living could do without.
But he went so far as to show us the inner workings of his discovery
(hereinafter referred to as It), which, not knowing what they were for,
rather mystified us. I know there was a small suction valve which
involved the use of water, because William demonstrated to us one
Sunday afternoon in the drawing-room. He said afterwards that the
unexpected deluge that broke over the politely interested faces
gathered round him was merely due to a leakage in the valve, and he set
to work to repair it at once.

At that time William always carried on his person a strange assortment
of screws, metal discs, springs, bits of rubber and the like. He
pulled them out in showers when he took out his handkerchief; they
dripped from him when he stood up. I think he kept them about him for
inspiration.

William completed It in a frenzy of enthusiasm. He said that nothing
now stood between him and a vast fortune, an