was unfamiliar and uncongenial to him; he would rather have calculated
the tables themselves. The true science of mathematics is the most
imaginative and creative of all sciences, but the mere application of
mathematics to figures for the construction of engines, ships, or
buildings is the dullest sort of drudgery.

Rather than that, he had chosen to teach what he knew and to dream of
great problems at his leisure when teaching was over for the day or for
the term. He had taught in a small college, and had known the rare
delight of having one or two pupils who were really interested. It had
been a good position, and he had married a clever New England girl, the
daughter of his predecessor, who had died suddenly. They had been very
happy together for years, and one boy had been born to them, whom his
father insisted on christening Newton. Then Overholt had thrown up his
employment for the sake of getting freedom to perfect his invention,
though much against his wife's advice, for she was a prudent little
woman, besides being clever, and she thought of the future of the two
beings she loved, and of her own, while her husband dreamed of hastening
the progress of science.

Overholt came to New York because he could work better there than
elsewhere, and could get better tools made, and could obtain more easily
the materials he wanted. For a time everything went well enough, but
when the investors began to lose faith in him things went very badly.

Then Mrs. Overholt told her husband that two could live where three
could not, especially when one was a boy of twelve; and as she would not
break his heart by teasing him into giving up the invention as a matter
of duty, she told him that she would support herself until it was
perfected or until he abandoned it of his own accord. She was very well