Great Stone of Sardis

by Frank Richard Stockton

  CHAPTER II. THE SARDIS WORKS

  At the little station of Sardis, in the hill country of New Jersey,Roland Clewe alighted from the train, and almost instantly his handwas grasped by an elderly man, plainly and even roughly dressed, whoappeared wonderfully glad to see him. Clewe also was greatly pleased atthe meeting.

  "Tell me, Samuel, how goes everything?" said Clewe, as they walked off."Have you anything to say that you did not telegraph? How is your wife?"

  "She's all right," was the answer. "And there's nothin' happened,except, night before last, a man tried to look into your lens-house."

  "How did he do that?" exclaimed Clewe, suddenly turning upon hiscompanion. "I am amazed! Did he use a ladder?"

  Old Samuel grinned. "He couldn't do that, you know, for the flexiblefence would keep him off. No; he sailed over the place in one of thoseair-screw machines, with a fan workin' under the car to keep it up."

  "And so he soared up above my glass roof and looked down, I suppose?"

  "That's what he did," said Samuel; "but he had a good deal of troubledoin' it. It was moonlight, and I watched him."

  "Why didn't you fire at him?" asked Clewe. "Or at least let fly one ofthe ammonia squirts and bring him down?"

  "I wanted to see what he would do," said the old man. "The machine hehad couldn't be steered, of course. He could go up well enough, but thewind took him where it wanted to. But I must give this feller the creditof sayin' that he managed his basket pretty well. He carried it a goodway to the windward of the lens-house, and then sent it up, expectin'the wind to take it directly over the glass roof, but it shifted alittle, and so he missed the roof and had to try it again. He made twoor three bad jobs of it, but finally managed it by hitchin' a long cordto a tree, and then the wind held him there steady enough to let himlook down for a good while."

  "You don't tell me that!" cried Clewe. "Did you stay there and let himlook down into my lens-house?"

  The old man laughed. "I let him look down," said he, "but he didn't seenothin'. I was laughin' at him all the time he was at work. He had hisinstruments with him, and he was turnin' down his different kinds oflights, thinkin', of course, that he could see through any kind ofcoverin' that we put over our machines; but, bless you! he couldn't donothin', and I could almost hear him swear as he rubbed his eyes afterhe had been lookin' down for a little while."

  Clewe laughed. "I see," said he. "I suppose you turned on thephoto-hose."

  "That's just what I did," said the old man. "Every night while you wereaway I had the lens-room filled with the revolving-light squirts, andwhen these were turned on I knew there was no gettin' any kind of raysthrough them. A feller may look through a roof and a wall, but he can'tlook through light comin' the other way, especially when it's twistin'and curlin' and spittin'."

  "That's a capital idea," said Clewe. "I never thought of using thephoto-hose in that way. But there are very few people in this world whowould know anything about my new lens machinery even if they saw it.This fellow must have been that Pole, Rovinski. I met him in Europe, andI think he came over here not long before I did."

  "That's the man, sir," said Samuel. "I turned a needle searchlighton him just as he was givin' up the business, and I have got a littlephotograph of him at the house. His face is mostly beard, but you'llknow him."

  "What became of him?" asked Clewe.

  "My light frightened him," he said, "and the wind took him over into thewoods. I thought, as you were comin' home so soon, I wouldn't do nothin'more. You had better attend to him yourself."

  "Very good," said Clewe. "I'll do that."

  The home of Roland Clewe, a small house plainly furnished, but goodenough for a bachelor's quarters, stood not half a mile from thestation, and near it were the extensive buildings which he called hisWorks. Here were laboratories, large machine-shops in which many menwere busy at all sorts of strange contrivances in metal and othermaterials; and besides other small edifices there was a great roundtower-like structure, with smooth iron walls thirty feet high andwithout windows, and which was lighted and ventilated from the top.This was Clewe's special workshop; and besides old Samuel Block and suchworkmen as were absolutely necessary and could be trusted, few peopleever entered it but himself. The industries in the various buildingswere diverse, some of them having no apparent relation to theothers. Each of them was expected to turn out something which wouldrevolutionize something or other in this world, but it was to hislens-house that Roland Clewe gave, in these days, his special attention.Here a great enterprise was soon to begin, more important in his eyesthan anything else which had engaged human endeavor.

  When sometimes in his moments of reflection he felt obliged to considerthe wonders of applied electricity, and give them their due place incomparison with the great problem he expected to solve, he had hismoments of doubt. But these moments did not come frequently. The daywould arrive when from his lens-house there would be promulgated a greatdiscovery which would astonish the world.

  During Roland Clewe's absence in Germany his works had been left underthe general charge of Samuel Block. This old man was not a scientificperson; he was not a skilled mechanic; in fact, he had been in earlylife a shoemaker. But when Roland Clewe, some five years before, had putup his works near the little village of Sardis, he had sent for Block,whom he had known all his life and who was at that time the tenant of asmall farm, built a cottage for him and his wife, and told him to takecare of the place. From planning the grounds and superintending fences,old Sammy had begun to keep an eye upon builders and mechanics; and,being a very shrewd man, he had gradually widened the sphere of hiscaretaking, until, at this time, he exercised a nominal supervisionover all the buildings. He knew what was going on in each; he had agood idea, sometimes, of the scientific basis of this or that bit ofmachinery, and had gradually become acquainted with the workings andmanagement of many of the instruments; and now and then he gave to hisemployer very good hints in regard to the means of attaining an end,more especially in the line of doing something by instrumentalities notintended for that purpose. If Sammy could take any machine which hadbeen constructed to bore holes, and with it plug up orifices, he wouldconsider that he had been of advantage to his kind.

  Block was a thoroughly loyal man. The interests of his employer werealways held by him first and above everything. But although the old manunderstood, sometimes very well, and always in a fair degree, what theinventor was trying to accomplish, and appreciated the magnitude andoften the amazing nature of his operations, he never believed in any ofthem.

  Sammy was a thoroughly old-fashioned man. He had been born and had grownup in the days when a steam-locomotive was good enough and fast enoughfor any sensible traveller, and he greatly preferred a good pair ofhorses to any vehicle which one steered with a handle and regulated thespeed thereof with a knob. Roland Clew e might devise all the wonderfulcontrivances he pleased, and he might do all sorts of astonishing thingswith them, but Sammy would still be of the opinion that, even if themachines did all that they were expected to do, the things they didgenerally would not be worth the doing.

  Still, the old man would not interfere by word or deed with any of theplans or actions of his employer. On the contrary, he would help him inevery possible way--by fidelity, by suggestion, by constant devotionand industry; but, in spite of all that, it was one of the most firmlyfounded principles of his life that Roland Clewe had no right to ask himto believe in the value of the wild and amazing schemes he had on hand.

  Before Roland Clewe slept that night he had visited all his workshops,factories, and laboratories. His men had been busily occupied duringhis absence under the directions of their various special managers, andthose in charge were of the opinion that everything had progressed asfavorably and as rapidly as should have been expected; but Roland Clewewas not satisfied, even though many of his inventions and machineswere much nearer completion than he had expected to find them. The worknecessary to be done in his lens-house before he could go on with thegreat wor
k of his life was not yet finished.

  As well as he could judge, it would be a month or two before he coulddevote himself to those labors in his lens-house the thought of whichhad so long filled his mind by day, and even during his sleep.