the most careful work could ensure.

This being settled, Overholt returned to New York and went to two or
three places in the Bowery, well known to him, where he bought certain
fine tools and pieces of the most perfectly turned steel spring, and
several other small objects, which he needed for the construction of the
new tangent-balance he had to make for the reversed curve. Finally, he
bought a silver watch like the one Newton had sold, and a new pair of
skates, presents which the boy certainly deserved, and which would make
a very good show at Christmas, when they were to be produced. He felt as
if he had come into a large fortune.

Moreover, when he got out of the train at his own station he went into
the town, and ordered beforehand the good things for the feast, though
there were three weeks still, and he wanted to pay for them in advance,
because he felt inside of himself that no one could be quite sure of
what might happen in twenty-one days; but the dealers flatly refused to
take his money, though they told him what the things would cost. Then
Overholt did almost the only prudent thing he had done in his life, for
he took the necessary money and five dollars more and sealed it up in an
envelope, which he put away in a safe place. The only difficulty would
lie in remembering where the place was, so he told Newton about it, and
the boy wrote it down on a piece of paper which he pinned up in his own
room, where he could see it. There was nothing like making sure of that
turkey, he thought. And I may as well say at once that in this matter,
at least, no untoward accident occurred, and the money was actually
there at the appointed time. What happened was something quite
different, and much more unexpected, not to say extraordinary and even
amazing; and in spite of all that, it will not take very long to tell.

Meanwhile, before it happened, Overholt and the boy were perfectly
happy. All day long the inventor worked at the tangent-balance, till he
had brought it to such perfection that it would be affected by a
variation of one-tenth of one second in the aggregate speed of ten
revolutions, and an increase or decrease of a tenth of a grain in the
weight of the volume of the compressed air. It was so sensitive that
John Henry and Newton trod cautiously on the floor of the workshop so as
not to set it vibrating under the glass clock-shade, where it was kept
safe from dust and dampness.

After it had been placed there