The war ship of
the future will cost anything from seven pound ten.
You're grinning again; but if you give me a magnet and a
Brixton trawler with a seven-pounder gun I'll show sport
to the finest battle-ship afloat."
"Well, there must be some flaw about this," I
suggested. "If your magnet is so strong as all
that, you would have your own broadside boomeranging
back upon you."
"Not a bit of it! There's a big difference between
a shot flying away from you with all its muzzle velocity,
and another one which is coming towards you and only
needs a slight deflection to strike the magnet. Besides,
by breaking the circuit I can take off the influence when
I am firing my own broadside. Then I connect, and
instantly become invulnerable."
"And your nails and screws?"
"The warship of the future will be bolted together by
wood."
Well, he would talk of nothing else the whole evening
but of this wonderful invention of his. Perhaps there is
nothing in it--probably there is not; and yet it
illustrates the many-sided nature of the man, that he
should not say one word about his phenominal success
here--of which I am naturally most anxious to hear--not
a word either upon the important subject of our
partnership, but will think and talk of nothing but this
extraordinary naval idea. In a week he will have tossed
it aside in all probability, and be immersed in some plan
for reuniting the Jews and settling them in
Madagascar.
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