rms of the real kings. Unable to speak any language but
their own, unused to pomp and pageantry, breezily independent in the
American fashion, the Reaper Kings plunged from adventure to adventure,
absolutely indifferent to everything but their reapers and success.

"There is to be a trial of reapers at Rome next June," wrote David M.
Osborne, a New Yorker who began to export reapers to Europe in 1862.
"Think of invading the sacred precincts of that ancient place with Yankee
harvesters. We will wake up the dry bones of these old countries, and
civilise and Christianise them with our farm machinery."

C. W. Marsh, inventor of the Marsh Harvester, made a sensational debut in
Hungary in 1870. Several grand dukes had arranged for a great contest of
the various sorts of reapers on one of the royal farms in Hungary, so that
the Minister of Agriculture might take notice. When the day arrived, there
were nine reapers at the farm, mostly of European design.

Marsh's strange-looking machine seemed to be a combination of reaper and
workbench. But ten minutes after the contest began, Marsh had the race
won. His machine was a new type, the forerunner of the modern self-binder.
It was so made that two men could stand upon it and bind the grain as fast
as it was cut. But on this occasion Marsh could hire no farmer to help him
and was obliged to do the work alone. The judges were stunned with
amazement, therefore, when they found that he had bound three-quarters of
an acre in twenty-eight minutes. Here was a man who could do in half an
hour what few Hungarian peasants could finish in less than a day!

"He is an athlete," said one. "A wizard," said another.

Before they could recover from their astonishment, Marsh had stored his
harvester, pocketed the prize of forty golden ducats, and hurried away to
his hotel, eager for a bath and a chance to pick the thistles out of his
hands.

But the grand dukes and miscellaneous dignitaries were not to be escaped
so easily. An officer in gorgeous uniform was sent to find Marsh and bring
him forthwith to the main dining-hall of the city. Here a banquet was
prepared, and a throng of high personages sat down, with Marsh at the head
of the table, cursing his luck and nursing his sore fingers.

At the close of the banquet, amid great applause, a medal was pinned upon
his coat, and the whole assemblage hushed to hear his reply. Now Marsh,
like two-thirds of the Reaper Kings, could no more make a spe