By the beard of the Prophet, as
they say in Cairo, the thing would take!"
I laughed heartily at this idea, and tried, at first in jest, then
earnestly, to make him understand I had no such plans in connection
with my discovery; that I only wanted to extend the amount of knowledge
in the world,--not the number of ice-cream pavilions. I offered to let
him take the whole affair into his own hands,--cost, profit, and all. I
wanted nothing to do with it. But he was too honest, as he thought, for
that, and still talked and argued,--giving his most visionary plans a
definite, tangible shape and substance by a certain process of
metallicizing, until they had not merely elbowed away the last shadow
of doubt, but had effectually taken possession of the whole ground, and
seemed to be the only consequences possible upon such a discovery. My
dislike to personal traffic in the sublimities of truth began to waver.
I felt keenly the force of the argument which Herndon used repeatedly,
that, if I did not thus claim the monopoly, (he talked almost as if I
had invented something,) some one else would, and so injustice be added
to what I had termed vulgarity. I felt that I must prevent injustice,
at least.
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