Hawkins was wild with joy, but Sellers was calm. Small
matters could not disturb his serenity. He said--
"That's just the way things go. A man invents a thing which could
revolutionize the arts, produce mountains of money, and bless the earth,
and who will bother with it or show any interest in it?--and so you are
just as poor as you were before. But you invent some worthless thing to
amuse yourself with, and would throw it away if let alone, and all of a
sudden the whole world makes a snatch for it and out crops a fortune.
Hunt up that Yankee and collect, Hawkins--half is yours, you know.
Leave me to potter at my lecture."
This was a temperance lecture. Sellers was head chief in the Temperance
camp, and had lectured, now and then in that interest, but had been
dissatisfied with his efforts; wherefore he was now about to try a new
plan. After much thought he had concluded that a main reason why his
lectures lacked fire or something, was, that they were too transparently
amateurish; that is to say, it was probably too plainly perceptible that
the lecturer was trying to tell people about the horrid effects of liquor
when he didn't really know anything about those effects except from
hearsay, since he had hardly ever tasted an intoxicant in his life.
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