Nevertheless, a fortnight elapsed, and then Dr.Amboyne received a short, mysterious line to tell him Mr.
Little had come home, and would be all the better of a visit.

On receipt of this the doctor went at once to the works, and found young Little lying on his carpenter's bench in a sort of gloomy apathy.

"Hallo!" said the doctor, in his cheerful way, "why what's the matter now ?" "I'm fairly crushed," groaned the inventor.
"And what has crushed you ?" "The roundabout swindle." "There, now, he invents words as well as things.

Come, tell me all about the roundabout swindle." "No, no; I haven't the heart left to go through it all again, even in words.

One would think an inventor was the enemy of the human race.