The Great Stone of Sardis | Page 5

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 good enough for a
bachelor's quarters, stood not half a mile from the station, and near it were the extensive
buildings which he called his Works. Here were laboratories, large machine-shops in
which many men were busy at all sorts of strange contrivances in metal and other
materials; and besides other small edifices there was a great round tower-like structure,
with smooth iron walls thirty feet high and without windows, and which was lighted and
ventilated from the top. This was Clewe's special workshop; and besides old Samuel
Block and such workmen as were absolutely necessary and could be trusted, few people
ever entered it but himself. The industries in the various buildings were diverse, some of
them having no apparent relation to the others. Each of them was expected to turn out
something which would revolutionize something or other in this world, but it was to his
lens-house that Roland Clewe gave, in these days, his special attention. Here a great
enterprise was soon to begin, more important in his eyes than anything else which had
engaged human endeavor.

When sometimes in his moments of reflection he felt obliged to consider the wonders of
applied electricity, and give them their due place in comparison with the great problem he
expected to solve, he had his moments of doubt. But these moments did not come
frequently. The day would arrive when from his lens-house there would be promulgated a
great discovery which would astonish the world.
During Roland Clewe's absence in Germany his works had been left under the general
charge of Samuel Block. This old man was not a scientific person; he was not a skilled
mechanic; in fact, he had been in early life a shoemaker. But when Roland Clewe, some
five years before, had put up 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 a small
farm, built a cottage for him and his wife, and told him to take care 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 his caretaking, until, at this time, he exercised a nominal supervision over
all the buildings. He knew what was going on in each; he had a good idea, sometimes, of
the scientific basis of this or that bit of machinery, and had gradually become acquainted
with the workings and management of many of the instruments; and now and then he
gave to his employer very good hints in regard to the means of attaining an end, more
especially in the line of doing something by instrumentalities not intended for that
purpose. If Sammy could take any machine which had been constructed to bore holes,
and with it plug up orifices, he would consider that he had been of advantage to his kind.
Block was a thoroughly loyal man. The interests of his employer were always held by
him first and above everything. But although the old man understood, sometimes very
well, and always in a fair degree, what the inventor was trying to accomplish, and
appreciated the magnitude and often the amazing nature of his operations, he never
believed in any of them.
Sammy was a thoroughly old-fashioned man. He had been born and had grown up in the
days when a steam-locomotive was good enough and fast enough for any sensible
traveller, and he greatly preferred a good pair of horses to any vehicle which one steered
with a handle and regulated the speed thereof with a knob. Roland Clew e might devise
all the wonderful contrivances he pleased, and he might do all sorts of astonishing things
with them, but Sammy would still be of the opinion that, even if the machines did all that
they were expected to do, the things they did generally would not be worth the doing.
Still, the old man would not interfere by word or deed with any of the plans or actions of
his employer. On the contrary, he would help him in every possible way--by fidelity, by
suggestion, by constant devotion and industry; but, in spite of all that, it was one of the
most firmly founded principles of his life that Roland Clewe had no right to ask him to
believe in the value of the wild and amazing schemes he had on hand.
Before Roland Clewe slept that night he