In reality the alleged Gaydon was a French engineer named Simon Hart,
who for several years past had been connected with a manufactory of
chemical products in New Jersey. Simon Hart was forty years of age.
His high forehead was furrowed with the wrinkle that denoted the
thinker, and his resolute bearing denoted energy combined with
tenacity. Extremely well versed in the various questions relating to
the perfecting of modern armaments, Hart knew everything that had been
invented in the shape of explosives, of which there were over eleven
hundred at that time, and was fully able to appreciate such a man
as Thomas Roch. He firmly believed in the power of the latter's
fulgurator, and had no doubt whatever that the inventor had conceived
an engine that was capable of revolutionizing the condition of both
offensive and defensive warfare on land and sea. He was aware that the
demon of insanity had respected the man of science, and that in Roch's
partially diseased brain the flame of genius still burned brightly.
Then it occurred to him that if, during Roch's crises, his secret was
revealed, this invention of a Frenchman would be seized upon by some
other country to the detriment of France. Impelled by a spirit of
patriotism, he made up his mind to offer himself as Thomas Roch's
guardian, by passing himself off as an American thoroughly conversant
with the French language, in order that if the inventor did at any
time disclose his secret, France alone should benefit thereby. On
pretext of returning to Europe, he resigned his position at the New
Jersey manufactory, and changed his name so that none should know what
had become of him.

Thus it came to pass that Simon Hart, alias Gaydon, had been an
attendant at Healthful House for fifteen months. It required no little
courage on the part of a man of his position and education to perform