any more such diabolical contrivances for the disturbance of the
public peace." All of which makes us believe that if either Edison or
Marconi had lived two hundred years ago, the bailiffs would have looked
after them with the butt end of the law for the regulation of wizards
and witches--wizards at Menlo Park being as bad as witches at Salem.

Newton's horseless carriage later came to grief in a similar way to
Swedenborg's invention--it worked so well and so fast that it turned a
complete somersault into a ditch, and its manipulation was declared to
be a pastime more dangerous than football.

Not all the things produced by Isaac about this time were failures. For
instance, among other things he made a table, a chair and a cupboard for
a young woman who was a fellow-boarder at the apothecary's. The
excellence of young Newton's handiwork was shown in that the articles
just mentioned outlasted both owner and maker.

* * * * *

Much of the reminiscence concerning the Grantham days of Sir Isaac
Newton comes from the fortunate owner of that historic old table, chair
and cupboard. This was Mary Story, who was later Mrs. Vincent.

Miss Story was the same age as Isaac. She was just eighteen when the
furniture was made roycroftie--she was a young lady, grown, and wore a
dress with a train; moreover, she had been to London and had been
courted by a widower, while Isaac Newton was only a lad in roundabouts.

Age counts for little--it is experience and temperament that weigh in
the scale. Isaac was only a little boy, and Mary Story treated him like
one. And here seems a good place to quote what Doctor Charcot said, "In
arranging the formula for a great man, make sure you delay adolescence:
rareripes rot early."

Isaac and Mary became very good chums, and used to ramble the woods
together hand in hand, in a way that must have frightened them both had
they been on the same psychic plane. Isaac had about the same regard for
her that he might have had for a dear maiden aunt who would mend his old
socks and listen patiently, pretending to be interested when he talked
of parallelograms and prismatic spectra. But evidently Mary Story
thought of him with a thrill, for she stoutly resented the boys calling
him "Coldfeet."

In due time Isaac gravitated to Cambridge. Mary mooed a wee, but soon
consoled herself with a sure-enough lover, and was married to Mr.
Vincent, a worthy man and true, but one who h