he model was reaching its
completion, and Brotherson's extreme interest in it and the confidence
he had in its success swallowed up all lesser emotions. Were the
invention to prove a failure--but there was small hope of this. The man
was of too well-poised a mind to over-estimate his work or miscalculate
its place among modern improvements. Soon he would reach the goal of
his desires, be praised, feted, made much of by the very people he now
professedly scorned. There was no thoroughfare for Sweetwater here.
Another road must be found; some secret, strange and unforeseen method
of reaching a soul inaccessible to all ordinary or even extraordinary
impressions.
Would a night of thought reveal such a method? Night! the very word
brought inspiration. A man is not his full self at night. Secrets which,
under the ordinary circumstances of everyday life, lie too deep
for surprise, creep from their hiding-places in the dismal hours
of universal quiet, and lips which are dumb to the most subtle of
questioners break into strange and self-revealing mutterings when sleep
lies heavy on ear and eye and the forces of life and death are released
to play with the rudderless spirit.
It was in different words from these that Sweetwater reasoned, no doubt,
but his conclusions were the same, and as he continued to brood over
them, he saw a chance--a fool's chance, possibly, (but fools sometimes
win where wise men fail) of reaching those depths he still believed in,
notwithstanding his failure to sound them.
Addressing a letter to his friend in Twenty-ninth Street, he awaited
reply in the shape of a small package he had ordered sent to the corner
drug-store. When it came, he carried it home in a state of mingled hope
and misgiving. Was he about to cap his fortnight of disappointment by
another signal failure; end the matter by disclosing his hand; lose all,
or win all by an experiment as daring and possibly as fanciful as were
his continued suspicions of this seemingly upright and undoubtedly busy
man?
He made no attempt to argue the question. The event called for the
exercise of the most dogged elements in his character and upon these he
must rely. He would make the effort he contemplated, simply because he
was minded to do so. That was all there was to it. But any one noting
him well that night, would have seen that he ate little and consulted
his watch continually. Sweetwater had not yet passed the line where work
becomes routine
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