om profiting by their inventions. Pasteur, in our day, perhaps the
most famous of all, the liver, not only of the simple but of the ideal
life, laboring for the good of humanity--service to man--and taking for
himself the simple life, free from luxury, palace, estate, and all the
inevitable cares accompanying ostentatious living. Berthollet preceded
him. Like Agassiz, these gifted souls were "too busy to make money."

In 1792, when Boulton had passed the allotted three score years and ten,
and Watt was over three score, they made a momentous decision which
brought upon them several years of deep anxiety. Fortunately the sons of
the veterans who had recently been admitted to the business proved of
great service in managing the affair, and relieved their parents of much
labor and many journeys. Fortunate indeed were Watt and Boulton in their
partnership, for they became friends first and partners afterward. They
were not less fortunate in each having a talented son, who also became
friends and partners like their fathers before them. The decision was
that the infringers of their patents were to be proceeded against.
They had to appeal to the law to protect their rights.

Watt met the apparently inevitable fate of inventors. Rivals arose in
various quarters to dispute his right to rank as the originator of many
improvements. No reflection need be made upon most rival claimants to
inventions. Some wonderful result is conceived to be within the range of
possibility, which, being obtained, will revolutionise existing modes. A
score of inventive minds are studying the problem throughout the
civilised world. Every day or two some new idea flashes upon one of them
and vanishes, or is discarded after trial. One day the announcement
comes of triumphant success with the very same idea slightly modified,
the modification or addition, slight though this may be, making all the
difference between failure and success. The man has arrived with the key
that opens the door of the treasure-house. He sets the egg on end
perhaps by as obvious a plan as chipping the end. There arises a chorus
of strenuous claimants, each of whom had thought of that very device
long ago. No doubt they did. They are honest in their protests and quite
persuaded in their own minds that they, and not the Watt of the
occasion, are entitled to the honor of original discovery. This very
morning we read in the press a letter from the son of Morse, vindicating
his fathe