Excerpt from Mark Tidd, Editor Mark's father didn't use to have any money at all. He just sat around inventing things and reading Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. First he'd invent a little, and then he'd read a little, and it was a wonder he didn't get the two mixed up. But finally he up and invented a turbine-engine, and it made such a pile of money for him that he didn't need to do a thing but read Gibbon and carry bushel baskets of dollars to the bank every little while. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.