“Not with you,” said the Major.  “Why?  What is it?”

And then Montague told him about his friend’s proposition, and described the invention.  The other listened attentively to the end; and then, after a pause, Montague asked him, “What do you think of it?”

“The invention’s no good,” said the Major, promptly.

“How do you know?” asked the other.

“Because, if it had been, the companies would have taken it long ago, without paying him a cent.”

“But he has it patented,” said Montague.

“Patented hell!” replied the other.  “What’s a patent to lawyers of concerns of that size?  They’d have taken it and had it in use from Maine to Texas; and when he sued, they’d have tied the case up in so many technicalities and quibbles that he couldn’t have got to the end of it in ten years—­and he’d have been ruined ten times over in the process.”

“Is that really done?” asked Montague.

“Done!” exclaimed the Major.  “It’s done so often you might say it’s the only thing that’s done.—­The people are probably trying to take you in with a fake.”

“That couldn’t possibly be so,” responded the other.  “The man is a friend—­”

“I’ve found it an excellent rule never to do business with friends,” said the Major, grimly.

“But listen,” said Montague; and he argued long enough to convince his companion that that could not be the true explanation.  Then the Major sat for a minute or two and pondered; and suddenly he exclaimed, “I have it!  I see why they won’t touch it!”

“What is it?”

“It’s the coal companies!  They’re giving the steamships short weight, and they don’t want the coal weighed truly!”

“But there’s no sense in that,” said Montague.  “It’s the steamship companies that won’t take the machine.”

“Yes,” said the Major; “naturally, their officers are sharing the graft.”  And he laughed heartily at Montague’s look of perplexity.

“Do you know anything about the business?” Montague asked.

“Nothing whatever,” said the Major.  “I am like the German who shut himself up in his inner consciousness and deduced the shape of an elephant from first principles.  I know the game of big business from A to Z, and I’m telling you that if the invention is good and the companies won’t take it, that’s the reason; and I’ll lay you a wager that if you were to make an investigation, some such thing as that is what you’d find!  Last winter I went South on a steamer, and when we got near port, I saw them dumping a ton or two of good food overboard; and I made inquiries, and learned that one of the officials of the company ran a farm, and furnished the stuff—­and the orders were to get rid of so much every trip!”

Montague’s jaw had fallen.  “What could Major Thorne do against such a combination?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said the Major, shrugging his shoulders.  “It’s a case to take to a lawyer—­one who knows the ropes.  Hawkins over there would know what to tell you.  I should imagine the thing he’d advise would be to call a strike of the men who handle the coal, and tie up the companies and bring them to terms.”