"Disturb me, my dear sir," he would have said
in answer to your apologies, "that's what I was put
in the world for. I love to be disturbed. Please do
it every day. Come in! Come in! It's delightful to
get hold of your hand."

If you were his friend, and most men who knew
him were, he would have slipped his arm through
your own, and after a brief moment you would have
found yourself poring over a detailed plan, his arm
still in yours, while he showed you the outline of some
pin, or lever, needed to perfect the most marvellous
of all discoveries of modern times--his new galvanic
motor.

If it were your first visit, and he had touched in
you some sympathetic chord, he would have uncovered
a nondescript combination of glass jars, horse-shoe
magnets, and copper wires which lay in a curious
shaped box beneath one of the windows, and in a voice
trembling with emotion as he spoke, he would have
explained to you the value of this or that lever, and
its necessary relation to this new invention of his
which was so soon to revolutionize the motive power
of the world. Or he would perhaps have talked to
you as he did to me, of his theories and beliefs
and of what he felt sure the future would bring
forth.