There was one honest and plain way out for Walter. He could write to
Bauer and frankly tell him that he had seen his drawings and had
received from them a hint for the discovery and ask him if he were
willing to share with him, Walter, in the result if the lamp proved
worth while financially. But here was Walter's weak point. He was proud
of his technical knowledge. Already it was conceded by all the students
in the electrical engineering department that Douglas of Milton was the
star. The instructors had given him special notice. He had already made
one or two very valuable and original contributions to the problems that
faced the shop every day. But nothing he had so far done would begin to
compare with this new arc light. The thought of sharing his discovery
with any one else touched his pride in its most sensitive and personal
spot.
He threshed it all over back and forth and when he finally went to bed
he was still undecided as to his course. The fact is, he could not
escape all the time the standard he had been trained in at home. If Paul
and Esther had done nothing else for their children they had certainly
done this; they had implanted in their minds a deep and strong feeling
that one of the things to be most desired in life is honesty; clean,
frank, wholesome honesty, free from cant and hypocrisy and double
dealing. And Walter knew in his heart that what he was going to do was
not honest to Bauer, even after he had juggled with his conscience and
proved to himself that Bauer had no real rights in the matter. He knew
perfectly well that the German student did have rights of prior
discovery. No amount of argument or defense of his own discoveries could
remove that fact.
Nevertheless, next day in the shop after he had put Bauer's belongings,
including the paper with the drawings, into Bauer's locker, Walter found
himself working with nervous haste over his model. It went together with
wonderful exactness and in spite of his feeling that he was acting the
part of a miserable cheat, he was, at least, during a part of the time,
in a glow of enthusiasm. For the most part he worked at night, when he
was least liable to watching from the other fellows. There were several
reasons why he could do this, among them an unusual interest in the
school at that time in evening functions which drew most of the shop
workers out.
Walter took parts of his model up to his room each night and studied
them. At the end of two weeks he had completed the lamp and it remained
only to give it an actual test. No word had been received from Bauer,
and inquiry from different professors had failed to discover any news
from him. It seemed to Walter almost certain that Bauer would not
return, and each day of his absence gave Walter less uneasiness, if not
an actual dulling of the keen edge of his conscience.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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