He has been boastful, if you like, and has said that with a teacupful of water he would drive a steamship across the Atlantic.

I have been silent, working away with my eye on him, and he has been working away with his eye on me, for each knows what the other is doing.

If either of us discovers how to control this force, then that man's name will go down to posterity for ever.

He has not yet been able to do it; neither have I.
There is still another difference between us.

He appears to be able to loosen that force in his own presence; I can only do it at a distance.
All my experiments lately have been in the direction of making modifications with this machine, so as to liberate the force within the compass, say, of this room; but the problem has baffled me.