d?" repeated Carl with scorn. "Satisfied because there was one
little measly spinning factory? You bet your life people weren't
satisfied! To be sure some of the hardest of the inventing was done.
But don't for a minute imagine you are through with Richard Arkwright.
He was still on the job."

"You told us about him before."

"Trying to get a patent on spinning by rollers? Yes, I did. Well, he
was still alive and of course when everybody was talking about spinning
he couldn't help hearing the gossip even if he did happen to be a
barber. In fact while he traveled round buying and selling hair for
wigs he must have met no end of people and talked with them, so I guess
he heard more of the news of the day than did lots of other men.
Barbers always seem to be sociable chaps. He was quite a mechanic, too,
in his way; machinery had always interested him."

"In spite of his making wigs and toupees for ladies and gentlemen?"
laughed Mrs. McGregor mischievously.

"Sure, Ma! He had been born in Lancashire just as Hargreaves had and so
he probably was particularly interested in Hargreaves. When anybody
from your own part of the world does anything smart you always are all
ears about it, you know. So Arkwright found out all he could by
gossiping about Hargreaves's spinning jenny, and no one was quicker to
see what such an invention would mean to England than he. The idea was
almost like a magnet to him. He hunted up Mr. Highs, who had
experimented a lot with spinning machinery, and talked with him; he
also met John Kay, who at one time had helped Highs. And because he was
such an intelligent listener and seemed to understand machinery so well
these men babbled to him about their hobby. Having heard all they had
to say Arkwright went off by himself and set quietly to work to try out
on a small scale certain notions of his own. These notions had to do
with spinning cotton by drawing rollers, and they worked perfectly.
That was enough for him. He announced his success, got his patent, was
knighted by the crown, and became rich. How's that for a yarn? Isn't it
like the story of Puss-In-Boots?"

"It is certainly magical," declared Mrs. McGregor, who had dropped her
work in her absorption. "I am glad, too, to know there was one inventor
who prospered."

"I am afraid he was the only one--at least of those interested in
spinning," replied Carl gravely.

"All the others both before and after him lost out so far as money
went."

"