Baker turned away and went back to his own room.
"This will never do," Jarley moaned to himself when his partner had
gone. "If one of my clients should come in--"
Then he stopped and grinned like a mischievous lad. He had caught sight
of an old water-meter that had been used as an exhibit in a case he had
once tried against the city in behalf of an inventor, who had been led
to believe that the water board would adopt his patent and compel every
householder to buy one for the registration of water consumed. What fun
it would be to take that apart, he thought, and thinking thus was enough
to set him about the task. He locked his door, moved the strange-looking
contrivance out into the middle of the room, and tried to unscrew the
top of it with his eraser. The delicate blade of this improvised
screw-driver snapped off in an instant, whereupon Jarley tried the
scissors, with similar results. After a half-hour of this he gave up the
idea of taking the meter apart, but his soul immediately became
possessed of another idea, which was to see if it worked. The pursuit of
this brought him the most deliriously joyful sensations; and for an hour
he devoted himself to filling the machine up with water drawn from a
faucet at one side of his room, and poured into the meter from a
drinking-glass. It was not until the hour was up that he observed that
the water after passing through the meter came out upon the carpet, and
it is probable that even then he would not have noticed it had not the
tenants below sent up to inquire if there was not something wrong with
the water-pipes overhead.
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