“Why, yes. I’ve got it over at the hotel.” He read the eagerness in the young man’s eyes and went on: “Perhaps you’ll drop in there this evening. There’s that letter and two others. Do come. I’d like to have a little chat.” After a few seconds, while his steady calm eyes rested on the old man, Haworth spoke. “I will,” he said. “Good,” said Mr. Cripps. And not long after—for he knew the value of brevity in such a case, he shook hands with both of them and told Haworth where he was staying. He went on foot the entire distance to the hotel, vastly enjoying a shadowy revisitation of the feeling known as treading on air. The old fellow was captivated with the young one. So much so that a painful dread took possession of him that he might not be able to persuade him to leave Montreal, which was his home, and where, undoubtedly, all the friends he had were living. Young Haworth, he was certain, knew little about money and cared for it even less; for which reason no pecuniary advantages he (Cripps) could hold out would be likely to attract him. It was Mr. Ralph Gaynor of the Smith & Gaynor Machine Works, who gave Mr. Cripps the most light on Haworth’s characteristics as to pecuniary matters, his genius for invention, and his inability to do steady work. This Mr. Gaynor, who was head of the works, thought young Haworth was hopeless. He could _learn_ all right. Good God! The boy was a marvel when it came to that! He’d know more about a machine inside of two days than a man they’d had on it for years. But when it came to steady work he just couldn’t do it. Not but what he tried his best, but his mind would get off on something else and you can’t leave big lathes and complicated drill presses with anybody like that. “O’ course I lit into him and gave it to him right from the shoulder,” Mr. Gaynor said, “but it didn’t do any good. Then I fired him, and he’d sure have starved if that Towse woman hadn’t gone on feeding him for nothing—which she couldn’t afford to do. Then we took him back an’ tried him with a helper to watch him, but even that wouldn’t work when he got one of his real inventing fits on him. So we had to give him up. Fond of the boy too, but there’s a limit.” “What do you think of his talent—his inventive faculty?”