CHAPTER XXIII.
So thick beset wi' thorns and briers?
That is the Path of Righteousness,
Though after it but few inquires.
That lies across the lily leven?
That is the Path of Wickedness,
Though some call it the road to Heaven."
Thomas the Rhymer.
Philip and Harry reached New York in very different states of mind. Harry was buoyant. He found a letter from Col. Sellers urging him to go to Washington and confer with Senator Dilworthy. The petition was in his hands. It had been signed by everybody of any importance in Missouri, and would be presented immediately.
"I should go on myself," wrote the Colonel, "but I am engaged in the invention of a process for lighting such a city as St. Louis by means of water; just attach my machine to the water-pipes anywhere and the decomposition of the fluid begins, and you will have floods of light for the mere cost of the machine. I've nearly got the lighting part, but I want to attach to it a heating, cooking, washing and ironing apparatus. It's going to be the great thing, but we'd better keep this appropriation going while I am perfecting it."
Harry took letters to several congressmen from his uncle and from Mr. Duff Brown, each of whom had an extensive acquaintance in both houses where they were well known as men engaged in large private operations for the public good,
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