“Well, yes,” smiled Perkins.  “I confess I’m the man, Mr. Finn; but now we are—­personal friends—­eh?  I was fagged out that night, and—­you didn’t send in your card, you know—­and I didn’t know it was you.”  The balance of power cast down his eyes, and rubbing his hand on his overalls as if to clean it, stretched it out.  Perkins grasped it, and Finn gave a slight gulp.  He wasn’t quite happy.  The proffered friendship of the man he had helped to defeat rather upset him; but he was equal to the occasion.

“Niver moind, sorr,” he said, when he had quite recovered.  “You’re young yit.  They’ve shoved yees out this toime, but wait awhoile.  Yees’ll be back.”

“No, Mr. Finn,” replied Perkins, handing Finn a cigar.  “Thanks to you, I got out of a tight hole, and as our maid said to you that night, I’ll ‘niver be back.’  But if you happen down my way again, I’ll be glad to see you—­at any time.  Good-bye.”

The two parted, and Thaddeus walked home, thinking deeply of the far-reaching effect in this life of little things; and as for Finn, he bit off half the cigar Perkins had given him, and as he chewed upon it, sitting on the edge of his barrow, he remarked forcibly to himself, “Well, oi’ll be daamned!”

JARLEY’S EXPERIMENT

Jarley was an inventive genius.  He invented things for the pleasure of it rather than with any idea of ultimately profiting from the results of his ingenuity, which may explain why it was that his friends deemed many of his contrivances a sheer waste of time.  Among other things that Jarley invented was a tennis-racket which could be folded up and packed away in a trunk.  The fact that any ordinary tennis-racket could be packed away in any ordinary trunk without being folded up was to Jarley no good reason why he should not devote his energies to the production of the compact weapon of sport which he called the Jarley Racket.  He was after novelty, and utility was always a secondary consideration with him.  Others of his inventions were somewhat more startling.  “The Jarley Ready Writing-Desk for Night Use,” for instance, was a really remarkable conception.  Its chief value lay in the saving of gas and midnight oil to impecunious writers which its use was said to bring about, and when fully equipped consisted simply of a writing-table with all the appliances and conveniences thereof treated with phosphorus in such a manner that in the blackest of darkness they could all be seen readily.  The ink even was phosphorescent.  The paper was luminous in the dark.  The penholders, pens, pen-wipers, mucilage-bottle, everything, in fact, that an author really needs for the production of literature, save ideas, were so prepared that they could not fail to be visible to the weakest eye in the darkest night without the aid of other illumination.  The chief trouble with the invention was that in the long-run it was more expensive than gas or oil could