_"Pigs Is Pigs" Butler quite surpasses himself in this story. The
intricacies in radio are so great, and the changes occur so quickly
that no one can afford to make a will wherein a radio provision
figures. Once we thought of having a radio loud speaker installed in
our coffin to keep us company and make it less lonesome. After
reading this story we quickly changed our mind. The possibilities
are too various._
I first met Mr. Remington Solander shortly after I installed my first
radio set. I was going in to New York on the 8:15 A.M. train and was
sitting with my friend Murchison and, as a matter of course, we were
talking radio. I had just told Murchison that he was a lunkheaded noodle
and that for two cents I would poke him in the jaw, and that even a
pin-headed idiot ought to know that a tube set was better than a crystal
set. To this Murchison had replied that that settled it. He said he had
always known I was a moron, and now he was sure of it.
"If you had enough brains to fill a hazelnut shell," he said, "you
wouldn't talk that way. Anybody but a half-baked lunatic would know that
what a man wants in radio is clear, sharp reception and that's what a
crystal gives you. You're one of these half-wits that think they're
classy if they can hear some two-cent station five hundred miles away
utter a few faint squeaks. Shut up! I don't want to talk to you. I don't
want to listen to you. Go and sit somewhere else."
Of course, this was what was to be expected of Murchison. And if I did
let out a few laps of anger, I feel I was entirely justified. Radio fans
are always disputing over the relative merits of crystal and tube sets,
but I knew I was right. I was just trying to decide whether to choke
Murchison with my bare hand and throw his lifeless body out of the car
window, or tell him a few things I had been wanting to say ever since he
began knocking my tube set, when this Remington Solander, who was
sitting behind us, leaned forward and tapped me on the shoulder. I
turned quickly and saw his long sheeplike face close to mine. He was
chewing cardamon seed and breathing the odor into my face.
[Illustration: Outraged citizens were removing their dead.]
"My friend," he said, "come back and sit with me; I want to ask you a
few questions about radio."
Well, I couldn't resist that, could I? No radio fan could. I did not
care much for the looks of this Remington Solander man, but for a few
weeks my friends had seemed to be steering away from me when I drew
near, although I am sure I never said anything to bore them. All I ever
talked about was my radio set and some new hook-ups I was trying, but I
had noticed that men who formerly had seemed to be fond of my company
now gave startled looks when I neared them. Some even climbed over the
nearest fence and ran madly across vacant lots, looking over their
shoulders with frightened glances as they ran. For a week I had not been
able to get any man of my acquaintance to listen to one word from me,
except Murchison, and he is an utter idiot, as I think I have made
clear. So I left Murchison and sat with Remington Solander.
* * * * *
In one way I was proud to be invited to sit with Remington Solander,
because he was far and away the richest man in our town. When he died,
his estate proved to amount to three million dollars. I had seen him
often, and I knew who he was, but he was a stand-offish old fellow and
did not mix, so I had never met him. He was a tall man and thin,
somewhat flabby and he was pale in an unhealthy sort of way. But, after
all, he was a millionaire and a member of one of the "old families" of
Westcote, so I took the seat alongside of him with considerable
satisfaction.
"I gather," he said as soon as I was seated, "that you are interested in
radio."