"You're right, sir," was the rejoinder. "I'm terrible fond of ships myself. They're human as people an' as different. You can turn 'em out from the same model, but no two of 'em will ever be alike. I've got a little yawl down on the shore I wouldn't take a thousand dollars for. She's knowin' as if she was alive. I can tell to an inch how much sail she'll stand an' how much water she'll draw. She answers to the tiller quick as a child to your voice, too--quicker'n most children. I've had her for years, an' smooth weather or foul she ain't never gone back on me. Folks disappoint you sometimes; but a boat never does." As if sensing that he was venturing on dangerous ground, he stopped abruptly. "So you build boats, do you?" he commented to change the subject.
"That's my calling," he assented. "And since it is, I am in a position to handle things that have to do with boats of all kinds. That is why your motor-boat idea has interested me so deeply. I saw its possibilities from the moment I first laid eyes on it, and I wish to congratulate you on having given the public such a useful invention."
"It ain't got far toward the public," objected Willie, with a deprecating shrug of his shoulders.
"But it is going to," Mr. Galbraith declared with promptness. "Bob, Mr. Snelling and I have taken matters into our own hands and have ventured to have an application for a patent prepared--description, claims and all; and after you have sworn to the affidavit and affixed your signature, we will send it off to Washington, where I haven't a doubt it will be granted. I thought this would save you the bother of attending to it yourself."
"Now Galbraith and Company will want the monopoly of that patent, Mr. Spence," hurried on the financier. "We are going to make you a proposition either for the purchase of it outright, or for its use on a royalty basis."
With a supreme disregard for business, Willie wheeled on him before he could go further and said simply:
"Law, Mr. Galbraith, you can use the thing an' welcome. Turn out as many of 'em as you like. It won't make no odds to me. But the patent--think of havin' a real patent on somethin' I've thought out! Just you picture it!"
He repeated the words in a soft, musing voice that hushed his hearers into stillness.