fri'nds outside on the lawn watchin' him troo de windy, laffin' loike a
hayeny."
"Excuse me--like a what?" said Thaddeus.
"A hayeny," repeated Mr. Finn. "Wan o' thim woild bastes as laffs at
nothin' much. 'Is he home?' sez oi. 'Are yees a pershonal fri'nd?' says
the gurl. 'Oi'm not,' sez oi. 'He ain't home,' says the gurl. 'Whin'll
he be back?' says oi. 'Niver,' says she, shlammin' the dure in me face;
and Mike Finn wid a certifikut uv election for um in his pocket!"
"A certificate of election?" cried Perkins. "And he wouldn't see you?"
"He would not."
"You were to an extent the balance of power, then?"
"That's what oi was," said Finn, enjoying what he thought was Perkins's
dismay; for he knew well enough to whom he was talking. "Oi was the rale
bonyfiday balance uv power. Oi've got foive sons, sorr, and ivery wan o'
thim byes is conthracthors, or, what's as good, bosses uv gangs on
public an' proivate works. There ain't wan uv thim foive byes as don't
conthrol twinty-foive votes, an' there ain't wan uv 'em as don't moind
what the ould mon says to um. Not wan, sorr. An' they resints the
turnin' down uv their father."
"That's as it should be," said Perkins.
"An' ut's as ut was, me young fri'nd. Whin oi wint home to me pershonal
fri'nds at th' Finn Club, Misther Perkins had losht me. Wan gone. Whin
oi tould the Finn Club, wan hundred sthrong, he losht thim. Wan hundred
and wan gone. Whin oi tould th' byes, he losht thim. Wan hundred an' six
gone. An' whin they tould their twinty-foive apiece, ivery twinty-foive
o' thim wint. Wan hundred an' six plus wan hundred an' twinty-foive
makes two hundred an' thirty-wan votes losht at the shlammin' uv the
front dure. An' whin two hundred an' thirty-wan votes laves wan soide
minus an' the other soide plus, th' gineral result is a difference uv
twoice two hundred an' thirty-wan, or foor hundred an' sixty-two. D'ye
mind thot, sorr?"
"I see," said Perkins. "And as this--ah--this particular candidate was
beaten by a bare majority of two or three hundred votes--"
"It was _me_ as done it!" put in the balance of power, shaking his
finger at Perkins impressively. "Me--Mike Finn!"
"Well, I hope Mr. Perkins hears of it, Mr. Finn," put in Thaddeus. "I am
told that he is wondering yet what hit him, and having put the affront
upon you, and through that inexcusable act lost the election, he ought
to know that you were his Nemesis."
"His what?" queried the real balance.
"His Nemesis. Nemesis is the name of a Greek goddess," exclaimed
Perkins.
"Oi'm no Greek, nor no goddess," retorted Finn, "but I give him the
throw-down."
"That's what I meant," explained Thaddeus. "The word has become part of
the English language. Nemesis was the Goddess of the Throw-down, and the
word is used to signify that."
"Oh, oi see," said Finn, scratching his head reflectively. Perkins took
his revelation a trifle too calmly. "You say you don't know this
Perkins," he asked.
"Well, I never met him," said the ex-candidate, smiling. "But I know
him."
Finn laughed again. "Oi'll bet ye do; an' oi guiss ye've seen his fa-ace
long about shavin'-toime in the mornin' in the lukin'-glash--eh?"
"Well, yes," smiled Perkins. "I confess I'm the man, Mr. Finn; but now
we are--personal friends--eh? I was fagged out that night, and--you
didn't send in your card, you know--and I didn't know it was you." The
balance of power cast down his eyes, and rubbing his hand on his
overalls as if to clean it, stretched it out. Perkins grasped it, and
Finn gave a slight gulp. He wasn't quite happy. The proffered friendship
of the man he had helped to defeat rather upset him; but he was equal to
the occasion.
"Niver moind, sorr," he said, when he had quite recovered. "You're young
yit. They've shoved yees out this toime, but wait awhoile. Yees'll be
back."
"No, Mr. Finn," replied Perkins, handing Finn a cigar. "Thanks to you, I
got out of a tight hole, and as our maid said to you that night, I'll
'niver be back.' But if you happen down my way again, I'll be glad to
see you--at any time. Good-bye."
The two parted, and Thaddeus walked home, thinking deeply of the
far-reaching effect in this life of little things; and as for Finn, he
bit off half the cigar Perkins had given him, and as he chewed upon it,
sitting on the edge of his barrow, he remarked forcibly to himself,
"Well, oi'll be daamned!"
JARLEY'S EXPERIMENT
Jarley was an inventive genius. He invented things for the pleasure of
it rather than with any idea of ultimately profiting from the results of
his ingenuity, which may explain why it was that his friends deemed many
of his contrivances a sheer waste of time. Among other things that
Jarley invented was a tennis-racket which could be folded up and packed
away in a trunk. The fact that any ordinary tennis-racket could be
packed away in any ordinary trunk without being folded up was to Jarley
no good reason why he should not devote his energies to the production
of the compact weapon of sport which he called the Jarley Racket. He was
after novelty, and utility was always a secondary consideration with
him. Others of his inventions were somewhat more startling. "The Jarley
Ready Writing-Desk for Night Use," for instance, was a really
remarkable conception. Its chief value lay in the saving of gas and
midnight oil to impecunious writers which its use was said to bring
about, and when fully equipped consisted simply of a writing-table with
all the appliances and conveniences thereof treated with phosphorus in
such a manner that in the blackest of darkness they could all be seen
readily. The ink even was phosphorescent. The paper was luminous in the
dark. The penholders, pens, pen-wipers, mucilage-bottle, everything, in
fact, that an author really needs for the production of literature, save
ideas, were so prepared that they could not fail to be visible to the
weakest eye in the darkest night without the aid of other illumination.
The chief trouble with the invention was that in the long-run it was
more expensive than gas or oil could possibly be in the most extravagant
household; but that bothered Jarley not a jot. Nor was he at all upset
when his ingenious Library Folding-Bed, comprising a real bookcase and
sofa-couch, failed to suit his practical-minded friends because, when
turned down for use as a couch, all the books in the bookcase side of
it fell out upon the floor. His arrangement was better than the ordinary
folding-bed, he said, because the bookcase side of it was not a sham,
but the real thing, while that of the folding-bed of commerce was a
delusion and a snare. As a hater of shams he justified his invention,
though of course it couldn't be put to much practical use unless the
purchaser was willing to take his books out of the shelves when he
intended using the piece of furniture for sleeping purposes. If the
purchaser was too lazy to do this it was not Jarley's fault, so the
inventor reasoned, nor did he intend improving his machine in order to
accommodate the lazy man in his pursuit of a life of indolence.
When Jarley married he turned his attention to the devising of apparatus
to make domestic life less trying to Mrs. Jarley. As a bachelor he had
contrived quite a number of mechanical effects which made his lonely
life easier. He had fitted up his rooms with devices by means of which,
while lying in bed on cold mornings, he could light his gas-stove
without getting up; and his cigars, the ends of which he had dipped in
sulphur, so that they could be lit by scratching them on the under side
of the mantel-piece, just as matches are ignited, were the delight of
his life. Now, however, he turned his mind towards helping little Mrs.
Jarley on in the domestic world. He prepared a chart by means of which
the monotony of marketing was done away with entirely. He also arranged
for her a charming automatic curl-paper box, and drew up a plan for a
patent pair of curling-tongs, which could be fastened to the gas-fixture
and kept heated to the degree required, so that it might be used at a
moment's notice. This was provided with a number of movable ends, all
different, in order that Mrs. Jarley could, if she chose, vary the
appearance of her curls according to her taste; and although the little
lady never approved of it sufficiently to have it made, it was
undoubtedly a valuable contrivance.
Then when Jarley junior came along to delight the parent soul,
self-rocking cradles and perpetual reservoirs for food were devised, and
some of them put into actual use, though, as a rule, Mrs. Jarley
preferred the old-fashioned methods to which she was by her home
training more accustomed.
The great invention of Jarley, however, was the result of his study of
Jarley junior as that very charming and exceedingly agile child
developed from infancy into boyhood. The idea came to him one Sunday
afternoon while Mrs. Jarley was at church. It was the nursemaid's
afternoon out, and Jarley had undertaken to care for Master Jarley in
the absence of his true guardians.
"Well, Jack," he said to his son, when they had been left in sole
possession of the Jarley mansion, "you and I must entertain each other
this afternoon. What shall we do?"
"I'd like to play choo-choo car with you," said Jack. "I'll be the
engine and you be the train."
"Very well," said Jarley. "Have you got your steam up?"
"Yeth," lisped Jack. "All aboard!"
Jarley hitched himself on to the engine as best he could by grabbing
hold of Jack's little coat tail, and the train started. It was the most
tedious journey Jarley ever undertook. The train went up and down
stairs, out upon the piazza, and finally landed in the kitchen, where
the engine fired up on such fuel as gingerbread and cookies.
Incidentally the train, as represented by Jarley, took on a load of
freight, consisting of the same fuel, and off they started again. At the
end of a half-hour's run Jarley was worn out, but the engine seemed to
gather strength and speed the farther it travelled; and as it let out a
fearful shriek--possibly a whistle--every time the rear end of the train
suggested side-tracking and a cessation of traffic for a month or two,
Jarley in his indulgence invariably withdrew the proposition. The
consequence was that when Mrs. Jarley returned from church Jarley was a
wreck, and as he handed the engine over to the maternal care he observed
with some testiness that in a well-kept household it seemed to him
matters should be so arranged that a busy man should not be compelled to
turn himself into a child's nurse, especially on the one day of the week
which he could devote to rest and relaxation. "If I had that boy's
energy," he said to himself as he fled to his library, "what wonders I
would accomplish! What a shame it is, too, that the wasted energy of
youth cannot be stored up in some way, so that when there comes the real
need for it, it can be made available!"
This thought was the germ of his invention. As he lay there in the
library he thought over the possibilities of life if the nervous force
of childhood, the misdirected energy of play-time, could only be put by
and drawn upon later just as man puts by the money he does not need in
the present for use in case of future rainy days. Then, as the sun sank
below the hills and the twilight hours with their inspiring softness
came on, Jarley resolved that he was the man to whom had come the
mission which should make of this ideal a reality. Probably in the full
glare of day he would not have undertaken it; but Jarley, in common with
most men of dreamy nature, felt in the quiet dusk the power to do all
things. He had the poetic temperament which sometimes leads on to great
things, and the man so gifted who does not feel himself capable, at that
hour of the day of rest, of battering down Gibraltar or of upbuilding
the whole human race, must account himself a failure.
"I'll do it," he murmured, drowsily, to himself, and he did. How he did
it was Jarley's own secret, and while he confides many things to me,
this secret he kept, and still keeps. All I know is that he fitted up a
play-room for Jack on the attic floor, and by means of an apparatus, the
peculiarities of whose construction he alone knows, he managed after a
while to store up the superfluous energy which Jack expended upon
everything that he did. Every time Jack turned a somersault he
contributed, unknown to himself, something to the growing bulk of
hoarded force in the reservoir provided for its reception. All the
strength necessary for the somersault was devoted to that operation. The
superfluity went to the reservoir. So, also, when in his play of scaling
imaginary rocks after fictitious wild beasts he endeavored futilely to
walk up the play-room wall, the unavailing energy went to augment the
stores from which Jarley hoped to extract so much that would prove of
value to the world.
When the reservoir was full the question that confronted Jarley was as
to the value of its contents, and to ascertain this he resolved upon an
experiment upon himself. No one else, he believed, would be willing to
subject himself to the experiment, nor did he wish at that time to let
others into his secret. Even Mrs. Jarley was not aware of his efforts,
and so he made the experiment. He liquefied the energy Jack had wasted,
and upon retiring one night took what he considered to be the proper
dose for the test. The effect was remarkable.
When he rose up the next morning he experienced a consciousness of power
that reminded him of sundry tales of Samson. But there was one drawback.
He did not seem quite able to control himself. For instance, instead of
dressing in the usual dignified and quiet way, he found himself prancing
about his room like a young colt, and while he was taking his bath he
had a yearning for objects of juvenile _virtu_ which had for many years
been strangers to his tub. He was not at all satisfied with his dip
plain and unadorned, and he had developed an unconquerable aversion for
soap. It was all he could do to restrain his inclination to call
vociferously for a number of small tin boats and birch-bark canoes,
without which Jack never bathed. He did conquer it, however, and at the
end of a half-hour managed to reach the end of his bath, though as a
rule he had hitherto rarely expended more than ten minutes in his
morning ablutions. Then came another difficulty. He found himself
utterly unable to stand still while he was putting on his clothes, and
finally Mrs. Jarley had to be called in to comb his hair for him. Jarley
himself could no more have taken the time to part it satisfactorily than
he could have flown.
"What _is_ the matter with you?" said Mrs. Jarley, as she made several
ineffectual attempts to get his truant locks into shape. "Have you
caught St. Vitus's dance?"
"Nothing's the matter with me," returned Jarley, standing on one foot
and hopping up and down thereon. "I feel well, that's all."
And then he tore out of the room, mounted the banisters, and slid
downstairs in an utterly unbecoming fashion, considering that he was a
man of thirty-five and the head of the house. He felt a little ashamed
of himself in the midst of this operation, particularly when he observed
that the waitress was standing in the hall below-stairs, looking at him
with eyes that betokened an astonishment as creditable to her as it was
disgraceful to him. He tried vainly to stop his wild descent when he
noted her presence. He clutched madly at the banisters, turning his
hands and knees into brakes in his effort to save his dignity; but once
started he could not stop, and as a consequence he went down like a
flash, slid precipitately over the newel-post, and landed with a cry of
mortification on the hall floor. He was not hurt, save in his
self-esteem, and gathering himself together, he endeavored to walk with
dignity into the dining-room; but he had hardly reached the door, when
he was overcome with a mad desire to whoop--and whoop he did. As a
consequence of the whoop Jack was scolded when Mrs. Jarley came down.
She had no idea that Jarley himself could be so blind to propriety as to
yell in so indecorous a fashion; and when poor little Jack was
upbraided, Jarley, despite his good intention to confess himself the
guilty party, discovered that the only act he was capable of was
giggling. Jack of course wept, and the more he wept the more Jarley
giggled, and was taken to task for encouraging the boy in his
misbehavior.
During breakfast he was unusually demonstrative. He could not bring
himself to await his turn when the potatoes were passed, and in his
eagerness to get at them he overturned his coffee, which served to turn
the tables a little, for Jack giggled at the mishap, while Jarley became
the centre of Mrs. Jarley's displeasure. What was worse, Jarley, try as
he might, could not resist the temptation to kick the legs of the table,
and it was not until Mrs. Jarley had threatened to dismiss Jack from her
presence, supposing that he must, of course, be the offender, that
Jarley assumed the burden of his misbehavior.
It was not until Jarley set out to his office, however, that he realized
the real horror of his condition. Instead of riding down-town on one
cable-car, as was his wont, he found himself trying, boy-like, to steal
a ride by jumping on a car platform and standing there until the
conductor came along, when he would hop off, ride a block or two on the
end of a truck, and then try a new car, so beating his way down-town.
Then he arrived at his office. I have neglected to state that while
invention was Jarley's avocation, he was by profession a lawyer, being
the junior member of a highly successful firm, at the head of which was
no less a person than the eminent William J. Baker, whose record at the
bar is too well known to require any further words of mine to recall him
to the minds of my readers. Jarley had not been in the office more than
ten minutes before he realized that he might better have remained at
home while the influence of Jack's wasted energy was within him. He was
in a state of irrepressibility. No matter how strongly he endeavored to
hold himself in check he could not do so, and his day down-town was like
the days of most boys who are permitted to spend a morning and an
afternoon with their parent in the workshop. The first thing he did on
reaching his desk was to roll back its folding top. This pleased him
unaccountably. He had never before imagined that so much fun could be
got out of the rolling top of a desk, and for a full quarter of an hour
he pulled it backward and forward, and so noisily withal that Mr. Baker
sent one of the clerks in to see if the office-boy had not become
suddenly insane.
Recalled to his true self for the moment, Jarley endeavored to get down
to work, but as he made the endeavor he became conscious that a
revolving chair has very pleasing qualities to one who is fond of
twirling. Round and round he twirled, and as he twirled he grabbed up
his cane, and in a moment realized that he was playing that he was on a
merry-go-round, and trying to secure a renewal of his right to ride by
catching imaginary rings on the end of his stick. This operation
consumed quite five minutes more of his time, and was accompanied by
such a vast number of "Hoop-las" that Mr. Baker came himself to see what
was the cause of the unseemly racket. Fortunately for Jarley, just as
his partner reached the doorway, the chair had reached the limit of its
twirling capacity, and having been unscrewed as far as it could be,
toppled over on to the floor, with Jarley underneath. "What in the
world does this mean, Jarley?" said Mr. Baker, severely, as he assisted
his fallen partner to rise.
"My chair has come apart," laughed Jarley, getting red in the face.
"That's the great trouble with that kind of chair," said Mr. Baker. "You
don't seem to mind the mishap very much."
"Oh no," said Jarley, gritting his teeth in his determination not to
follow his mad impulse to jump on Mr. Baker's shoulders and clamor for a
picky-back ride. "No; I don't mind little things like that much."
Here he stood on his right leg, as he had done before breakfast, and
began to hop.
"Hurt your foot?" queried Mr. Baker.
Jarley seized at the suggestion with all the despairing vigor of a
drowning man clutching at a rope.
"Yes; a little, but not enough to mention," he said; whereupon, much to
his relief, Mr. 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.
When Jarley realized what had happened he wisely determined to give up
business for the day. While the spirit of Jack was within him, the
business he might transact was not likely to prove of value to himself
or to any one else. So he put on his hat and coat, called a cab, and
started for home. His experiences in the cab were quite of a kind with
the experiences of the morning, and attended with no little personal
danger. He would lean against the cab door and put his arm out and try
to touch horse-cars as they passed. Once or twice he nearly had his head
knocked off by sticking it out of the windows; but by some happy chance
he got interested in the cab curtains and the inviting little strings,
which, when pulled, made them fly up with a snap. Absorbed in this
occupation, he drove on, and gave up all such dangerous experiments as
playing tag with horse-cars and trucks, and arrived at home in time for
luncheon unhurt.
Mrs. Jarley was somewhat alarmed at the unexpected return of Mr. Jarley,
but was content with his explanation that while he never felt better in
his life, he deemed it best to return and attend to his work in the
privacy of his own home. For the proper accomplishment of this work he
said that he thought he would use Jack's nursery on the attic floor,
where he could be quiet, and he asked as an especial favor that he might
be left alone with Jack for the balance of the day.
He had made up his mind that his experiment, while a success in one
way, were not what he expected in another way. He had found Jack's
energy very energetic indeed, but not suited for adult use, and he even
found himself wondering why he had not thought of that before. However,
the thing to do now was to get rid of that spirit as soon as possible.
If it had become permanently a part of him, he had reached his second
childhood, which for a man of thirty-five is a disturbing thought. So
disturbing was it that Jarley resolved upon a heroic measure to cure
himself. _Similia similibus_ struck him as being the only possible cure,
and so, regardless of the possible consequences to his physical being,
he "permitted" Jack to be with him up-stairs "while he worked," as he
put it to Mrs. Jarley, though all others were forbidden to approach.