WILL be ground in the days
of civilization."

His eye, which had been turned inward during his reverie, dullish and
somewhat fish-like, now sparkled like a hot coal, and he led the way
eagerly.

"Pray humor him, sir," said Bayne, compassionately.

They followed him up a horrid stair, and entered his studio and a
marvelous place it was: a forge on one side, a carpenter's bench
and turning-lathe on the other and the floor so crowded with models,
castings, and that profusion of new ideas in material form which
housewives call litter, that the artist had been obliged to cut three
little ramified paths, a foot wide, and so meander about the room, as
struggles a wasp over spilt glue.

He gave the doctor the one chair, and wriggled down a path after pencil
and paper: he jumped with them, like a cat with a mouse, on to the
carpenter's bench, and was soon absorbed in drawing.

When he had drawn a bit, he tore up the paper, and said, "Let me think."

"The request is unusual," said Dr. Amboyne; "however, if you will let us
smoke, we will let you think."

No reply from the inventor, whose eye was already turned inward, and
fish-like again.

Dr. Amboyne and Bayne smoked peaceably awhile. But presently the
inventor uttered a kind of shout.

"Eureka," said the doctor calmly, and emitted a curly cloud.

Little dashed at the paper, and soon produced a drawing. It represented
two grindstones set apparently to grind each other, a large one below, a
small one above.

"There--the large stone shall revolve rapidly, say from north to south;
the small one from south to north: that is the idea which has just
struck me, and completes the invention. It is to be worked, not by one
grinder, but two. A stands south, and passes the saw northward between
the two grindstones to B. The stones must be hung so as just to allow
the passage of the saw. B draws it out, and reverses it, and passes it
back to A. Those two journeys of the saw will grind the whole length of
it for a breath of two or three inches, and all in forty seconds. Now
do you see what I meant by the grammar of mechanics? It was the false
grammar of those duffers, grinding a long thing sideways instead of
lengthways, that struck my mind first. And now see what one gets to
at last if one starts from grammar. By this machine two men can easily
grind as many big saws as twenty men could grind on single stones: and
instead of all that heavy, coarse labor, and dirt, and splashing,