But
the man who happens to fancy submarine telegraphy most likely invents a
lot of new improvements, takes out dozens of patents, finds money flow
in upon him as he sits in his study, and becomes at last a peer and a
millionaire; so then we say, What a splendid business head he has got,
to be sure, and how immensely he differs from his poor wool-gathering
brother, the entomologist, who can only invent new ways of hatching
out wire-worms! Yet all may really depend on the first chance direction
which led one brother as a boy to buy a butterfly net, and sent the
other into the school laboratory to dabble with an electric wheel and a
cheap battery."
"Then you mean to say it is chance that has made Sebastian?"
Hilda shook her pretty head. "By no means. Don't be so stupid. We both
know Sebastian has a wonderful brain. Whatever was the work he undertook
with that brain in science, he would carry it out consummately. He is a
born thinker. It is like this, don't you know." She tried to arrange her
thoughts. "The particular branch of science to which Mr. Hiram Maxim's
mind happens to have been directed was the making of machine-guns--and
he slays his thousands.
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