bed the invention. The other listened attentively to the end; and
then, after a pause, Montague asked him, "What do you think of it?"

"The invention's no good," said the Major, promptly.

"How do you know?" asked the other.

"Because, if it had been, the companies would have taken it long ago,
without paying him a cent."

"But he has it patented," said Montague.

"Patented hell!" replied the other. "What's a patent to lawyers of
concerns of that size? They'd have taken it and had it in use from
Maine to Texas; and when he sued, they'd have tied the case up in so
many technicalities and quibbles that he couldn't have got to the end
of it in ten years--and he'd have been ruined ten times over in the
process."

"Is that really done?" asked Montague.

"Done!" exclaimed the Major. "It's done so often you might say it's the
only thing that's done.--The people are probably trying to take you in
with a fake."

"That couldn't possibly be so," responded the other. "The man is a
friend--"

"I've found it an excellent rule never to do business with friends,"
said the Major, grimly.

"But listen," said Montague; and he argued long enough to convince his
companion that that could not be the true explanation. Then the Major
sat for a minute or two and pondered; and suddenly he exclaimed, "I
have it! I see why they won't touch it!"

"What is it?"

"It's the coal companies! They're giving the steamships short weight,
and they don't want the coal weighed truly!"

"But there's no sense in that," said Montague. "It's the steamship
companies that won't take the machine."

"Yes," said the Major; "naturally, their officers are sharing the
graft." And he laughed heartily at Montague's look of perplexity.

"Do you know anything about the business?" Montague asked.

"Nothing whatever," said the Major. "I am like the German who shut
himself up in his inner consciousness and deduced the shape of an
elephant from first principles. I know the game of big business from A
to Z, and I'm telling you that if the invention is good and the
companies won't take it, that's the reason; and I'll lay you a wager
that if you were to make an investigation, some such thing as that is
what you'd find! Last winter I went South on a steamer, and when we got
near port, I saw them dumping a ton or two of good food overboard; and
I made inquiries, and learned that one of the officials of the company
ran a farm, and furnished the stuff--and the orde