had time to
leave the private office.

"You need not go away like that, Mr. Overholt, without shaking hands."

The visitor stopped and turned back at once. He was thin and rather
shabbily dressed. I know many poor men who are fat, and some who dress
very well; but this was not that kind of poor man.

"Excuse me," he said mildly. "I didn't mean to be rude. I quite forgot."

He came back, and Mr. Burnside shook hands with becoming coldness, as
having just given a lesson in manners. He was not a bad man, nor a
miser, nor a Scrooge, but he was a great stickler for manners,
especially with people who had nothing to give him. Besides, he had
already lent Overholt money; or, to put it nicely, he had invested a
little in his invention, and he did not see any reason why he should
invest any more until it succeeded. Overholt called it selling shares,
but Mr. Burnside called it borrowing money. Overholt was sure that if he
could raise more funds, not much more, he could make a success of the
"Air-Motor"; Mr. Burnside was equally sure that nothing would ever come
of it. They had been explaining their respective points of view to each
other, and in sheer absence of mind Overholt had forgotten to shake
hands.

Mr. Burnside had no head for mechanics, but Overholt had already made an
invention which was considered very successful, though he had got little
or nothing for it. The mechanic who had helped him in its construction
had stolen his principal idea before the device was patented, and had
taken out a patent for a cheap little article which every one at once
used, and which made a fortune for him. Overholt's instrument took its
place in every laboratory in the world; but the mechanic's labour-saving
utensil took its place in every house. It was on the strength of the
valuable tool of science that Mr. Burnside had invested two thousand
dollars in the Air-Motor without really having the smallest idea whether
it was to be a machine that would move the air, or was to be moved by
it. A number of business men had done the same thing.

Then, at a political dinner in a club, three of the investors had dined
at the same small table, and in an interval between the dull speeches,
one of the three told the others that he had looked into the invention
and that there was nothing in Overholt's motor after all. Overholt was
crazy.

"It's like this," he had said. "You know how a low-pressure engine acts;
the steam does a part of the work an