Leppel himself could have lived on air, in his present tension of mind and body. His model was at last completed; more, it actually worked. It was indeed a beauteous little machine, and the admiration of the whole quarter; so that, in spite of the hard times, he had been able to borrow five dollars here and ten there, until he had raised enough to pay the necessary fees at the patent-office. “But if you take my advice,” said one of the lenders (the loans were all to be secured by shares in the patent), “you’ll get a man I know in Washington to look into it for you. I believe he has that patent-office at his finger-ends, and it’s a regular picnic to hear him tell why this model was a failure, and that, not half so good, perhaps, took like hot cakes. Just send your machine to him. It looks to _me_ like a pretty good thing, but”— “I’ll _take_ it to him,” answered Leppel sharply. He did take it to him. The man of knowledge inspected it closely, and carefully studied every motion. Then he thoughtfully stroked his beard, which was long and luxuriant (perhaps from excess of knowledge) to the point of aggressiveness. “Yes,” he said slowly. “Yes, yes. Seems pretty clever: ingenious, too; works all right; labor-saving, no doubt of that. Might be a very good thing; but I’m afraid, Mr. Rolf, I’m _afraid_ there’s no money in it. In fact,” for you see the man of knowledge had had other interviews with inventors, and he knew that things must be broken to them gently, “in fact, there’s a what-you-call-‘em already in the office, enough like yours to be its own brother.” “Impossible! I never heard of it!” stammered the inventor. “Oh! I don’t suppose you did; case of great minds thinking alike, you know. Bless your soul, it happens every day! Not the same _machine_, you know,” with an emphasis as if it might possibly have been the same something else; “but like it; just enough like it for yours to be an infringement on the patent, if the patent was worth anything, which it ain’t.” “Then my invention is surely not the same,” said poor Leppel, in his labored English; for, though he had twice helped to elect a President, he had lived in America only ten years. “Have you not already said it was good and labor-saving?”