AGREEMENT IMPOSSIBLE
“And the first who says the contrary—”
“Indeed! But we will say the contrary so long as there is a place to
say it in!”
“And in spite of your threats—”
“Mind what you are saying, Bat Fynn!”
“Mind what you are saying, Uncle Prudent!”
“I maintain that the screw ought to be behind!”
“And so do we! And so do we!” replied half a hundred voices confounded
in one.
“No! It ought to be in front!” shouted Phil Evans.
“In front!” roared fifty other voices, with a vigor in no whit less
remarkable.
“We shall never agree!”
“Never! Never!”
“Then what is the use of a dispute?”
“It is not a dispute! It is a discussion!”
One would not have thought so to listen to the taunts, objurgations,
and vociferations which filled the lecture room for a good quarter of
an hour.
The room was one of the largest in the Weldon Institute, the well-known
club in Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U. S. A. The evening
before there had been an election of a lamplighter, occasioning many
public manifestations, noisy meetings, and even interchanges of blows,
resulting in an effervescence which had not yet subsided, and which
would account for some of the excitement just exhibited by the members
of the Weldon Institute. For this was merely a meeting of balloonists,
discussing the burning question of the direction of balloons.
In this great saloon there were struggling, pushing, gesticulating,
shouting, arguing, disputing, a hundred balloonists, all with their
hats on, under the authority of a president, assisted by a secretary
and treasurer. They were not engineers by profession, but simply
amateurs of all that appertained to aerostatics, and they were amateurs
in a fury, and especially foes of those who would oppose to aerostats
“apparatuses heavier than the air.” flying machines, aerial ships, or
what not. That these people might one day discover the method of
guiding balloons is possible. There could be no doubt that their
president had considerable difficulty in guiding them.
This president, well known in Philadelphia, was the famous Uncle
Prudent, Prudent being his family name. There is nothing surprising in
America in the qualificative uncle, for you can there be uncle without
having either nephew or niece. There they speak of uncle as in other
places they speak of father, though the father may have had no
children.
Uncle Prudent was a personage of consideration, and in spite of his
name was well known for his audacity. He was very rich, and that is no
drawback even in the United States; and how could it be otherwise when
he owned the greater part of the shares in Niagara Falls? A society of
engineers had just been founded at Buffalo for working the cataract. It
seemed to be an excellent speculation. The seven thousand five hundred
cubic meters that pass over Niagara in a second would produce seven
millions of horsepower. This enormous power, distributed amongst all
the workshops within a radius of three hundred miles, would return an
annual income of three hundred million dollars, of which the greater
part would find its way into the pocket of Uncle Prudent. He was a
bachelor, he lived quietly, and for his only servant had his valet
Frycollin, who was hardly worthy of being the servant to so audacious a
master.
Uncle Prudent was rich, and therefore he had friends, as was natural;
but he also had enemies, although he was president of the club—among
others all those who envied his position. Amongst his bitterest foes we
may mention the secretary of the Weldon Institute.
This was Phil Evans, who was also very rich, being the manager of the
Wheelton Watch Company, an important manufactory, which makes every day
five hundred movements equal in every respect to the best Swiss
workmanship. Phil Evans would have passed for one of the happiest men
in the world, and even in the United States, if it had not been for
Uncle Prudent. Like him he was in his forty-sixth year; like him of
invariable health; like him of undoubted boldness. They were two men
made to understand each other thoroughly, but they did not, for both
were of extreme violence of character. Uncle Prudent was furiously hot;
Phil Evans was abnormally cool.
And why had not Phil Evans been elected president of the club? The
votes were exactly divided between Uncle Prudent and him. Twenty times
there had been a scrutiny, and twenty times the majority had not
declared for either one or the other. The position was embarrassing,
and it might have lasted for the lifetime of the candidates.
One of the members of the club then proposed a way out of the
difficulty. This was Jem Chip, the treasurer of the Weldon Institute.
Chip was a confirmed vegetarian, a proscriber of all animal
nourishment, of all fermented liquors, half a Mussulman, half a
Brahman. On this occasion Jem Chip was supported by another member of
the club, William T. Forbes, the manager of a large factory where they
made glucose by treating rags with sulphuric acid. A man of good
standing was this William T. Forbes, the father of two charming
girls—Miss Dorothy, called Doll, and Miss Martha, called Mat, who gave
the tone to the best society in Philadelphia.
It followed, then, on the proposition of Jem Chip, supported by William
T. Forbes and others, that it was decided to elect the president “on
the center point.”
This mode of election can be applied in all cases when it is desired to
elect the most worthy; and a number of Americans of high intelligence
are already thinking of employing it in the nomination of the President
of the Republic of the United States.
On two boards of perfect whiteness a black line is traced. The length
of each of these lines is mathematically the same, for they have been
determined with as much accuracy as the base of the first triangle in a
trigonometrical survey. That done, the two boards were erected on the
same day in the center of the conference room, and the two candidates,
each armed with a fine needle, marched towards the board that had
fallen to his lot. The man who planted his needle nearest the center of
the line would be proclaimed President of the Weldon Institute.
The operation must be done at once—no guide marks or trial shots
allowed; nothing but sureness of eye. The man must have a compass in
his eye, as the saying goes; that was all.
Uncle Prudent stuck in his needle at the same moment as Phil Evans did
his. Then there began the measurement to discover which of the two
competitors had most nearly approached the center.
Wonderful! Such had been the precision of the shots that the measures
gave no appreciable difference. If they were not exactly in the
mathematical center of the line, the distance between the needles was
so small as to be invisible to the naked eye.
The meeting was much embarrassed.
Fortunately one of the members, Truck Milnor, insisted that the
measurements should be remade by means of a rule graduated by the
micrometrical machine of M. Perreaux, which can divide a millimeter
into fifteen-hundredths of a millimeter with a diamond splinter, was
brought to bear on the lines; and on reading the divisions through a
microscope the following were the results: Uncle Prudent had approached
the center within less than six fifteenth-hundredths of a millimeter.
Phil Evans was within nine fifteen-hundredths.
And that is why Phil Evans was only secretary of the Weldon Institute,
whereas Uncle Prudent was president. A difference of three
fifteen-hundredths of a millimeter! And on account of it Phil Evans
vowed against Uncle Prudent one of those hatreds which are none the
less fierce for being latent.