isson," said he, "if the Confederacy had lived, I would have died
before I ever told what became of that order of yours. But now I have no
secrets, I believe, and I care for nothing. I do not know now how it
happened. We knew it was an extra nice job. And we had it on an elegant
little new French Fourdrinier, which cost us more than we shall ever
pay. The pretty thing ran like oil the day before. That day, I thought
all the devils were in it. The more power we put on the more the rollers
screamed; and the less we put on, the more sulkily the jade stopped. I
tried it myself every way; back current, I tried; forward current; high
feed; low feed; I tried it on old stock, I tried it on new; and, Mr.
Sisson, I would have made better paper in a coffee-mill! We drained off
every drop of water. We washed the tubs free from size. Then my
brother, there, worked all night with the machinists, taking down the
frame and the rollers. You would not believe it, sir, but that little
bit of wire,"--and he took out of his pocket a piece of this hateful
steel, which poor I knew so well by this time,--"that little bit of wire
had passed in from some hoop-skirt, passed the pickers, passed the
screens, through all the troughs, up and down through what we call the
lacerators, and had got itself wrought in, where, if you know a
Fourdrinier machine, you may have noticed a brass ring riveted to the
cross-bar, and there this cursed little knife--for you see it was a
knife by that time--had been cutting to pieces the endless wire web
every time the machine was started. You lost your bonds, Mr. Sisson,
because some Yankee woman cheated one of my rag-men."

On that story I came up stairs. Poor Aunt Eunice! She was the reason I
got no salary on the 1st of April. I thought I would warn other women by
writing down the story.

That fatal present of mine, in those harmless hourglass parcels, was the
ruin of the Confederate navy, army, ordinance, and treasury; and it led
to the capture of the poor President, too.

But, Heaven be praised, no one shall say that my office did not do its
duty!

THE LOST INVENTOR[4]

BY WALLACE IRWIN

Patriotic fellow-citizens, and did you ever note
How we honor Mr. Fulton, who devised the choo-choo boat?
How we glorify our Edison, who made the world to go
By the bizzy-whizzy magic of the little dynamo?
Yet no spirit-thrilling tribute has been ever heard or seen
For the fellow who invente