It is now necessary to explain how this Frenchman came to quit France,
what motive attracted him to the United States, why the Federal
government had judged it prudent and necessary to intern him in this
sanitarium, where every utterance that unconsciously escaped him
during his crises were noted and recorded with the minutest care.

Eighteen months previously the Secretary of the Navy at Washington,
had received a demand for an audience in regard to a communication
that Thomas Roch desired to make to him.

As soon as he glanced at the name, the secretary perfectly understood
the nature of the communication and the terms which would accompany
it, and an immediate audience was unhesitatingly accorded.

Thomas Roch's notoriety was indeed such that, out of solicitude for
the interests confided to his keeping, and which he was bound to
safeguard, he could not hesitate to receive the petitioner and listen
to the proposals which the latter desired personally to submit to him.

Thomas Roch was an inventor--an inventor of genius. Several important
discoveries had brought him prominently to the notice of the
world. Thanks to him, problems that had previously remained purely
theoretical had received practical application. He occupied a
conspicuous place in the front rank of the army of science. It will be
seen how worry, deceptions, mortification, and the outrages with which
he was overwhelmed by the cynical wits of the press combined to drive
him to that degree of madness which necessitated his internment in
Healthful House.

His latest invention in war-engines bore the name of Roch's