Chapter 23

FAME COMES TO THE DREAMER OF DREAMS

Richard Galbraith returned thoughtfully over the Harbor Road not sorry at the turn affairs had taken. The honorable and magnanimous thing had been done with the Lee fortune, and it had been firmly and proudly refused. Now it could go unreservedly to Robert Morton for whom the financier had a particular regard and in whose wisdom to make a sensible use of it he felt every confidence. The money would not only place the young man in a position to marry without delay, but indirectly its benefits would reach the two individuals that Madam Lee would most earnestly have desired to help. Nor did the capitalist's regard for Delight, which had steadily been growing, decrease when viewed from this new angle. The Lees were a proud race and the girl came justly by the attribute. He was not sure, now that he reflected on the matter, but that he himself would have scorned the legacy in the same high-handed fashion. Nevertheless he had not expected this termination of the interview, had not expected it at all. His recently acquired relatives were proving themselves interesting persons. Who would have dreamed that a penniless fisherman's daughter would have tossed the Lee ducats back into his face?

He laughed to himself when he thought of the paradox. He had always admired spirit in a woman.

The car rolled on, flashing past swamps of swaying iris bedded deep in the salt marsh-grass, past tangles of fragrant honeysuckle and garlands of clinging clematis, and presently shot out into the sunny stretch of road that like a white ribbon bound the blue waters of the bay. When it reached the bluff where the sand mounted into green-capped dunes, patched in their hollows with shadows of violet, it slowed down and came to a stop before Willie Spence's weathered cottage.

The old inventor and Bob were seated idly on the workshop steps. No longer did the vibrant hammer and purring plane blend their metallic notes with the music of the surf. Their work was done, and until he was "kitched with a new idee" Willie had nothing to do but smoke beneath the shade of the grapevine and rambler rose and watch the vast reach of water to the line where it melted into the blue of the sky.

Since his interview with Mr. Galbraith, Robert Morton had had all he could do to keep from Willie the assurance that Janoah's accusations were false and that instead of misfortune good luck was winging its way toward the low gray house on the bay. Bob was a generous fellow and it added tenfold to his present happiness to know that joy was also coming to one toward whom he cherished an abiding affection. The secret, however, was Mr. Galbraith's, and until the New Yorker saw fit to impart it he must maintain silence. Therefore, with smiles wreathing his face and the wonderful story locked tightly in his possession, he tried to be patient until the final revelation should be made.

And now with the approach of the capitalist he knew that at last the great moment had arrived. The dream of years was to come true and the darling of Willie's brain, his greatest and most ambitious idea, was to be made a potent factor in the broad universe. So perfectly did he understand the quaint, half-shrinking inventor that he knew well no money, no fame, no praise could mean to him what this recognition would. Persons were to use the thing he had thought out,--to use it neither because of friendship nor interest, but because it was a practical, indispensable article which no mind had previously given to the world. In the days and weeks Bob had spent in the Spence cottage it was impossible not to read all this and more in the sensitive, hungering nature of the man who had worked beside him. Love and parenthood in its smaller and more specific sense had passed Willie Spence by, but in their place there had sprung into life a broader altruism and a larger creative impulse. The children his mind begot were as much of his blood and marrow as if they had actually been born of his own flesh; and to have one of them go victoriously forth into that moving current that reached so far beyond his own humble door would be like sending a child into battle. It transformed the father to one of the elect.

Surely, thought Robert Morton, great and unexpected issues had centered about his visit to Wilton. When confronted by the present unfoldings, who would have the temerity to boast that one's destinies were matters of chance?

"Well," called Mr. Galbraith as he came up the walk, "you two people look comfortable. Is there room on that doorstep for one more?"

"Certainly, sir! Certainly!" Willie replied. "But wouldn't you rather we heaved a box or something out of the shop for you to set on? You'll find these steps a good way down, I'm afraid."

"Not a bit of it," the New Yorker answered, dropping into the welcome shade of the trellis. "You have deserted the shop, I see. Does that mean your work is done?"

"Done an' delivered," smiled Willie. "We've discharged our cargo an' ain't took nothin' else aboard yet. We're just kinder ridin' at anchor."

"How did your friend, Mr. Brewster, like your handiwork?"

In spite of his native modesty Willie's bronzed face lighted with pride.

"Say, you'd oughter seen him!" exclaimed he, forgetting everything else in his pleasure. "He was struck clean abeam! He never suspected nothin' about it an' the surprise took him broadside. An' it works!" continued the little man with enthusiasm. "Yes, siree! It works! That cockleshell of a _Sea Gull_ goes rippin' along through the eel grass, her propeller clear and free as if she had twenty fathoms of water under her. It's as pretty a sight as you'd care to look on."

Mr. Galbraith watched the shining eyes of the inventor.

"Mr. Spence," he said, "that idea of yours is going to be a very useful and valuable one. Have you thought of that?"

Willie flushed.

"Well," replied he with hesitation, "yesterday when I was shuckin' clams it did come to me that mebbe there'd be other folks besides Zenas Henry would like it."

"A great many folks!" rejoined the capitalist. "I am in a position to know, because shipbuilding chances to be my business."

"So I was told," his listener remarked quietly. An expression of quick surprise passed over the other's countenance.

"Yes," he went on, "both Mr. Snelling and I are interested in boats in our way."

"It's a fine job," Willie observed evasively.

"Yes, it is. Not only is shipbuilding a fascinating occupation but it is a patriotic one as well, for I believe the resurrection of our merchant marine to be one of the most important duties of our nation. Everything that works toward that end is a service to the country, in my estimation."

"You're right, sir," was the rejoinder. "I'm terrible fond of ships myself. They're human as people an' as different. You can turn 'em out from the same model, but no two of 'em will ever be alike. I've got a little yawl down on the shore I wouldn't take a thousand dollars for. She's knowin' as if she was alive. I can tell to an inch how much sail she'll stand an' how much water she'll draw. She answers to the tiller quick as a child to your voice, too--quicker'n most children. I've had her for years, an' smooth weather or foul she ain't never gone back on me. Folks disappoint you sometimes; but a boat never does." As if sensing that he was venturing on dangerous ground, he stopped abruptly. "So you build boats, do you?" he commented to change the subject.

Richard Galbraith nodded.

"That's my calling," he assented. "And since it is, I am in a position to handle things that have to do with boats of all kinds. That is why your motor-boat idea has interested me so deeply. I saw its possibilities from the moment I first laid eyes on it, and I wish to congratulate you on having given the public such a useful invention."

"It ain't got far toward the public," objected Willie, with a deprecating shrug of his shoulders.

"But it is going to," Mr. Galbraith declared with promptness. "Bob, Mr. Snelling and I have taken matters into our own hands and have ventured to have an application for a patent prepared--description, claims and all; and after you have sworn to the affidavit and affixed your signature, we will send it off to Washington, where I haven't a doubt it will be granted. I thought this would save you the bother of attending to it yourself."

Poor Willie was too amazed to speak.

"Now Galbraith and Company will want the monopoly of that patent, Mr. Spence," hurried on the financier. "We are going to make you a proposition either for the purchase of it outright, or for its use on a royalty basis."

With a supreme disregard for business, Willie wheeled on him before he could go further and said simply:

"Law, Mr. Galbraith, you can use the thing an' welcome. Turn out as many of 'em as you like. It won't make no odds to me. But the patent--think of havin' a real patent on somethin' I've thought out! Just you picture it!"

He repeated the words in a soft, musing voice that hushed his hearers into stillness.

"I never thought to live to see the day anything of mine would be patented. That means that nobody else anywhere in the world ever was kitched by that same idee before, don't it? It's sorter--sorter wonderful an' gratifyin'. But if it hadn't been for the rest of you that's helped me, the claptraption would never have been in any kind of shape. 'Twould 'a' been just a hit-or-miss contrivance like the rest of the idees I've got indoors. You see, I never had the schoolin' to manage my notions, even when once I'd got 'em. I know that well enough. So if I should get a patent on this thing, 'twould be mostly due to you that's helped me, an' I thank you most humble." His voice trembled with feeling. "After all you've done--the three of you--you wouldn't expect me to take money from you for usin' the scheme, would you? Take it an' welcome, an' may it bring luck to your business! But there's one thing I would like," he added timidly. "If we should get them patent papers from the government an' they ain't no particular use to you, I'd like to keep 'em by me to read over now an' again. 'Twould sorter make it all seem more real some way, an' less as if I'd dreamed it. I've imagined this happenin' so many times an' woke up to find 'twas only imaginin's."

The blue eyes softened into mistiness.

"To think of gettin' a patent! To think of it! Celestina will be glad. I'm afraid, by an' large, I've bothered her quite considerable with my strings, an' spools, an' tacks, an' such. She'll like to know some of 'em went for somethin', after all. The Brewsters an' Delight will be pleased, too. An' there's Janoah! Oh, Janoah must be told right away, Bob, quick's ever we can fetch it. 'Twill clear the air 'twixt him an' me, an' make us both happier. I ain't never been able to convince him that if you put your trust in folks they seldom betray it. Who knows but when he finds out what's happened he'll kitch _that_ idee? If he should, 'twould be worth all the inventions and patents in the world put together. Look for the best, I say, an' you get it every time," continued the little old man, with a smile of exquisite serenity. "The universe is full of kindly souls with hearts a-beatin' inside 'em same's yours. Meet 'em with your hands out, an' their hands will come the other halfway."

"It is a pity you can't take out a patent on that notion, Mr. Spence, and sow it broadcast," returned the New Yorker soberly.

Willie's gaze traveled with wistful and reverent faith across the other's face to the sky above him.

"Somehow," he murmured, "I like to believe that idee was patented centuries ago by One who put it right to work by believin' the best of all us poor sinners. Folks ain't used the notion yet, much as they might, but they're gettin' round to, an' the day'll come when not to believe in the other feller's soul will be like--well, like havin' a motor-boat without our attachment," concluded he whimsically.