something else. He has been on the Lisbon-Cintra line for the last ten
years, and that's pretty nearly all that is known about him. Half a
score of fellows have tried at different times to get him to talk, but
he sees through it, and closes up like an oyster."
"Where does he live?" I asked; for this sounded interesting.
"You'll have to get him to tell you himself; nobody else knows. Bet you
twenty mil you don't draw him."
"Done!" said I, and booked the bet.
Now, the more I allowed my thoughts to dwell on the square,
determined-looking features of the man, the more angry I grew with
myself because I could not put a name to the face. The fellow haunted
me the whole morning, and as the dilatoriness of the Portuguese
Government officials, with whom I was trying to negotiate a sugar
concession, gave me plenty of time for reflection, by the time I had
become thoroughly tired of hanging round the Cortes, and had made up
my mind to having to wait once more for the interminable Portuguese
"to-morrow," I was also quite ready for another interview with
"Judson." I set off, therefore, for the station, and took my ticket to
Cintra.
[Illustration: "'I'M QUITE GETTING TO LIKE THE LOOK OF YOUR UGLY
FACE.'"]
What was the man's real name? And where had I seen that rather wooden
smile before?
Ten years on the Lisbon-Cintra line, they say. Then I must have been
quite a kid when I met him in England, if I ever did meet him. Ten
years--by Jove! can it be Farquhar? Six feet two, determined features,
wooden smile--it _is_ Farquhar! Wonder how Nellie Conyers will take
this when I tell her. Doubtful, very! But on second thoughts, _shall_ I
tell her? H-m! I don't know.
The point is that, although Mrs. Conyers is my second cousin, she is
also a young widow, unencumbered; and I am rather afraid of her. She
was engaged to Farquhar before she met Conyers, but the match was
broken off because of some Indian scandal or other; something about the
Viceroy's Cup, I think. Farquhar had a horse entered, which won when it
shouldn't, or lost when it shouldn't--I forget which. Anyway, there was
unpleasantness, and Farquhar threw up his commission, and offered to
release Nellie Vincent from her engagement. She took him at his word,
and married the next "eligible" who came along--Amos Conyers, to wit, a
Yorkshire wool-comber, since deceased. All things considered, I thought
perhaps I wouldn't tell Mrs. Conyers.
But if Cousin Nellie inspired me with awe, the Cintra ticket-examiner
didn't; so when the door of the compartment (which, as luck would have
it, I had to myself after we left Rio de Mouro) suddenly opened, and
the familiar "_Com licença_" heralded the fact that my legs were as
usual in the way, I was prepared.
"Sir," I said, "I was rude to you this morning, and I wish to
apologise."
He looked hard at me for a moment; then smiled, and shrugged his
shoulders slightly, Portuguese fashion.
"The senhor is pleased to make fun of me," he answered, quietly.
"No; I'm in dead earnest," I declared. "But whose pardon have I the
honour to beg--Captain Ian Farquhar's, shall I say?"
He turned on me at once, and the ticket-nippers fell out of his
twitching fingers and clattered on the floor unheeded.
"Who told you that name?" he demanded, fiercely.
"Nellie Vincent," said I, and watched him narrowly, "used to speak
pretty frequently about a certain Ian Farquhar--that is to say, before
she became Mrs. Conyers, of course--and I thought----"
"Who are you?" he interrupted, with a menacing gesture which was all
English, "and what do you know about Nellie Vincent?"
[Illustration: "'WHO TOLD YOU THAT NAME?' HE DEMANDED, FIERCELY."]
"As much as a not very distant relative may know," I answered, suavely.
"Can I take her any message from Captain Farquhar?"
He turned sharply round, and I wondered whether he was going to embrace
me or assault me. As a matter of fact, he did neither.
"Go to the devil," he snarled savagely in my face, and then, opening
the door with a jerk, swung himself out on to the foot-board.
Now, we were on an incline, and going, for a Portuguese local train,
really fast. Under ordinary circumstances, therefore, he would have
waited till we slowed down at the station before venturing to pass on
to the next carriage; but a badly surprised man forgets that he's got a
neck to be broken.
[Illustration: "'I THINK I DROPPED MY NIPPERS,' HE EXPLAINED,
NERVOUSLY."]
"I've a notion I shall win those twenty mil," said I to myself, as I
picked up the nippers he had dropped. "Anyhow, the Captain will have to
return for this little implement."
The engine gave a couple of piercing shrieks; the guard leaned out
and blew his penny trumpet; the station-master's bell could be heard
ringing furiously ahead of us; and all this unnecessary noise merely
meant that we were entering Cintra station. Just before we came to a
standstill, Farquhar paid me the visit I was waiting for.
"My nippers," he explained, nervously, poking his head in at the window
and peering about; "I think I dropped them."
I handed the tool to him. He took it, and then, with breathless haste,
jerked out, "Look here, I'm off duty at eight. Come to my shanty if you
can--pink-washed hut just below the Quinta da Bella Vista. Sorry I was
rude to you just now."
Then he dropped off the foot-board, and the train pulled up at the
platform with a clumsy jerk.
* * * * *
"Yes," remarked Farquhar, contentedly, "you're right. There are uglier
spots in the world than this."
Then he blew a couple of smoke-rings, and watched them dissolve slowly
in the still air.
The sun was just disappearing behind the club-shaped kitchen chimneys
of the Moorish palace, and the long, doleful "_Wo-o-o-a-aw_" of the
donkey men, who were bringing a party of Spanish tourists back from
Montserrat and the Cork Convent, floated across the lemons and roses of
the _quintas_ below, and died away in the silences above us, smothered
by the heavy curtain of pine needles.
"Does it satisfy you?" I asked, quietly.
"What--the scenery?"
"No, I don't mean that--you'd be a captious brute if it didn't--but the
life."
The man's brow contracted ominously, and he threw away his cigar with
unnecessary energy.
"You're used to something better, you see," I insinuated.
"And I am used to this," he replied, shortly.
Then he dropped his chin on to his chest and looked at me from under
his brows.
[Illustration: "'WOULD IT BE FORGOTTEN THAT I HAD TO RESIGN MY
COMMISSION?'"]
"See here," he said, with cold emphasis. "I guess what you're driving
at, and I tell you I don't like it. You say you are Nellie Vincent's
cousin, and that you remember me in the old days. Well, you may; but I
don't remember you, and I don't recognise your right to criticise me."
[Illustration: "I MET HER AT A CRUSH IN HANS PLACE."]
"Really," I began, "I have no wish----"
"Good heavens, man!" he interrupted, and pointed excitedly to the
panorama around us. "Look about you, and say if you know a better place
for a poor devil of a Pariah to bury himself in! My hut is comfortable;
the scenery is perfect; that _caldeirada_ of mullet and vegetables, of
which you were pleased to approve just now, is a luxury within reach
of even a railwayman's wage, and the cigar you are smoking is one of a
case of eight thousand Villar y Villars which I brought with me when I
turned hermit. I don't smoke more than one a day on an average, so if
you calculate you'll find there are still over four thousand left."
He got up, and paced the gravel aggressively.
"Do you ever see an English paper?" I asked, with sudden recollections
of an obituary notice.
The furrow on the ticket-nipper's brow smoothed itself out; his
movements lost their irritable jerkiness, and when he spoke the grating
snarl had gone from his voice.
"Yes," he answered, quietly, "I do. I know that my father is dead, and
that I can call myself Sir Ian Farquhar if I choose to. That's what you
mean, isn't it? I got a month's holiday and went and laid a wreath on
the old man's grave."
There was a catch in Farquhar's voice as he told me this, and somehow I
did not care to break the pause which followed.
"But," he went on again, "what should I gain by going home now? My
title, and the grouse moors which go with it, would gain me friends--of
a sort. I know that; but do you imagine that it would be forgotten
for a moment that I had to resign my commission because of a hocussed
racehorse? Would Mrs. Conyers, for instance, allow me to visit her?"
"Yes," I answered, decidedly; but I wasn't sure.
"You think so? You don't know her, then; and if she would I shouldn't
go--can't you see that?"
"I don't see why you shouldn't," I contended.
Sir Ian laughed bitterly as I spoke.
"You don't? No, of course you don't! You've never heard a man call
you a cheat and not had the power to call him a liar in return. A few
experiences of that sort develop one's shyness, you'd find. I shall
never go home till----"
"Till Nellie Conyers asks you to," I interrupted.
"No," he answered, "not that; I stick to possibilities. I was merely
going to say that I wouldn't go home until I could give the lie to
every man in my old regiment. Looks as if I should stay here some time,
doesn't it?"
"You can clear yourself," I suggested.
"No," he retorted, "I can't."
I didn't believe him.
"Look here," I said; "I'm going home next week. Will you give me a
brief?"
"What, to vindicate my reputation? Yes, if you don't care about your
own. They won't believe you."
"I'll risk that," said I; for I had a notion that my cousin Nellie, at
all events, might, perhaps, be convinced.
* * * * *
As soon as possible after my arrival in England, I went and told my
tale to Mrs. Conyers. I met her at a crush in Hans Place, and engaged
her to sit out three consecutive dances with me. To give me these
she had, so she said, to disappoint two very nice boys indeed; but I
insisted. My tale would take three dances at least in the telling, and,
moreover, it concerned Ian Farquhar; so, with a pout--Nellie's pouts
were a part of her ordnance, and, of course, suited her--she consented.
As it happened, we sat out not three dances, but five; for after I had
said my say, she also had something to tell--and of the two hers was
the better tale, for it made Farquhar into a hero.
I knew that Nellie's brother had been a lieutenant in Farquhar's
regiment, but I did not know that the responsibility for the foul
running in the Viceroy's Cup was conclusively proved to lie between
Captain Farquhar and Lieutenant Vincent. Vincent denied it stoutly;
Farquhar, engaged to Vincent's sister, said nothing. So Farquhar became
the Cintra ticket-nipper, and Vincent remained with his regiment
until the native moneylenders made India too hot to hold him. Then he
resigned, and, socially speaking, went under.
Nellie had learned the facts from one of her "nice boys," a "sub" who
had taken over Vincent's sayce after the smash, and was still too young
to know when to hold his tongue. The sayce let out that Vincent Sahib
had bribed him to drug the racehorse.
"And so, you see," said Nellie to me, "poor Ian was a hero after all.
It was for my sake, you know, that he wouldn't speak."
I said something appropriate.
"Nonsense!" said Nellie, with a blush. "Please ask them to call my
carriage; I want to go home. And you might come to-morrow and talk
things over with me--and--and--book a passage to Lisbon by the next
mail--you'll want it."
"Well, I'm--astonished," said I; but I wasn't.
* * * * *
"My dear fellow," said Farquhar to me, when I visited him again in
his Cintra hut, "I don't want to be rude to you, but I'd much rather
you let me alone. I've broken with the old life, you see, and you
must allow that you are out of place in the new one. You'll pardon my
speaking so plainly."
[Illustration: "'BOOK A PASSAGE TO LISBON BY THE NEXT MAIL. YOU'LL WANT
IT,' SHE SAID."]
"Sir Ian Farquhar," said I, "light one of those Villar y Villars and
sit down and listen to me. After you've heard what I have to say, I'll
never visit you again until you ask me."
I told him my tale, and he heard it through without showing by a
flicker how it affected him.
"Now," said I, when I had finished, "what are you going to do?"
"Bid you good-night," he answered, shortly. "I work the first train
to-morrow."
"Man!" I exclaimed, in amazement, "Nellie Conyers wants you--she sent
me to say so."
"Does she? Then she can come and say so herself."
"Oh, come, that's unreasonable," I began; but a flutter of skirts at
the door interrupted me.
"I couldn't wait any longer," said my cousin Nellie, pleadingly. "Ian,
you'll come back to England with me?"
I picked up my hat and went for a stroll. When I returned the door was
closed, and Nellie was waiting outside.
"Don't go in," she commanded. "He sent me out to wait till he'd changed
out of his railway clothes. He has hunted an old Poole suit out of his
trunk, and is putting it on."
[Illustration: "'IAN, YOU'LL COME BACK TO ENGLAND WITH ME?'"]
[Illustration]
"PERPETUAL MOTION" SEEKERS.
THEIR FASCINATING BUT HOPELESS PURSUIT.
_With Illustrations of Machines that have been Invented Recently._
[Illustration: PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE WHICH WOULD NOT GO.]
Three apparently hopeless quests have engaged the abilities of
inventors and scientists from a very early period--the Philosopher's
Stone, that should convert everything it touched into pure gold; the
Elixir of Life, that once partaken of should invest the recipient with
immortality on earth; and Perpetual Motion.
To the average man it is a self-evident fact that unless you put
energy or force of some sort into a machine it won't work. Thus, a
locomotive will not move unless you apply steam or electricity, nor a
bicycle unless the muscular energy of your own body propels it. But,
simple as this fact may seem, there have been, from early times, as we
have indicated, men whose whole object in life has been to construct
a machine that, once started, shall run for ever by its own momentum.
There are such people to-day; and it is pathetic to think what an
immense amount of inventive genius has been expended on projects that
we may declare to be absolutely hopeless of achievement, even in these
days of phonographs and wireless telegraphy.
"Why can't it be done?" says the Inventor. Many reasons to the contrary
might be adduced, but the most cogent answer to the practical man lies
in this great fact, that up to the present not a single perpetual motor
has ever yet been seen at work--that is to say, no machine has ever yet
been invented which, when once started, would work for an indefinite
time without a corresponding amount of energy being given it.
Careful experiment and daily observation all point to one comprehensive
principle--that you cannot get out of a machine more work than you put
into it. In the locomotive, for example, the work given out when it
is in operation is exactly equivalent to the energy stored up in the
inert coal cast into the furnace. Although this principle in all its
scientific exactitude is less than a century old, yet its truth is now
so well settled, that nothing short of an actual working perpetual
motor could demonstrate its falsity. The search for the Philosopher's
Stone, the production of an Elixir of Life, have, like the hope
of an El Dorado, been consigned to the limbo of forgotten things.
Nevertheless, in spite of science, aspirations after the Perpetual
Motor still burn fitfully.
[Illustration: ANOTHER INGENIOUS FAILURE.]
Some, indeed the vast majority, of the chimerical methods for getting
work for nothing, are being rediscovered day by day, and, as before,
cast aside. An almost incredible amount of wasted labour and fruitless
effort have been devoted to this subject. The quest, however, ever
seems to be fresh and attractive, and year after year in wearying
succession continues to allure, as the records of the Patent Office
show, a never ending train of deluded enthusiasts.
A few of the typical methods that have been imagined for consummating
the desired end are here introduced. One of the simplest methods
consists in the use of a wheel, divided into a series of spoke-like
boxes, each of which contains a rolling ball. Since the balls on the
falling side of the wheel are farther from the centre, it is clearly
seen (on paper) that the weights act with greater advantage on that
side of the wheel than on the other, and, of course, will drag the
wheel over, and this, as the balls roll (so far as anything is seen
to the contrary by the designer), should continue indefinitely. An
excellent theory--but, sad to relate, the most exquisitely constructed
machine of this pattern ceases to turn after a few revolutions.
The propounder of perpetual motion theories does not always confine
himself to diagrams, but sometimes deludes himself in a cloud of
verbiage. Here is a sample. "Let us," says the theorist, "construct a
wheel of immense dimensions. On one side of it, let there be hung a
huge mass. On the opposite side suspend innumerable small weights. Then
shall it be found that the wheel will continually revolve. For when the
huge mass is at the top, its weight will cause it to descend. Why is
this? The answer is obvious--because it is so heavy. In the meantime
the innumerable small weights will reach the top, and thereupon _they_
will descend. Why is _this_? The answer again is clear--because there
are so many."
Most excellent word juggling perhaps, but it would scarcely impose on a
child. We cannot, however, avoid a shrewd suspicion that the theorist
in this instance has done no more than employ a method not altogether
foreign to those sometimes utilised in much more serious, recondite,
and difficult matters. Passing on, we reach an arrangement where the
balls are secured to hinged arms, which, as the wheel turns round, fall
open on the one side and close up on the other. Clearly the leverage is
greater on one side, so that the wheel _ought_ to revolve continually
when once started, and to give out work which could be transmitted by
driving bands or other devices to operate machinery.
[Illustration: "TUMBLING JACK," THE NURSERY'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE
PURSUIT.]
In this example, and indeed throughout this article, we have not
troubled about practical details of construction. These, of course,
do not affect the principles involved. Much ingenuity indeed has been
shown in their production, but the perpetual motionist cannot claim in
them an exclusive property.
[Illustration: SHOWING HOW JACK WORKS.]
The flopping-over arrangement just described reminds one of the
"Tumbling Jack," a children's toy one often sees on sale in the
streets. In this toy a series of bricks are strung together in a chain.
From the ingenious way in which the bricks are joined it results, as
everyone who ever seen it will at once remember, that on holding the
uppermost brick in the hand and giving it an almost imperceptible
tilting movement, an apparently endless series of bricks chase each
other down the chain. Each brick in succession tumbles over and
imparts an impulse to the one immediately below it, which in turn
does the same, and so the motion is carried from one end of the chain
to the other. Why could not this everlasting tumbling-down motion,
which seemingly is produced without effort, be turned to account? It
only needs the chains to be sufficiently multiplied in point of size
or number to furnish us with a source of power which apparently may
be made as large as we desire. Considerations of this kind wear a
plausible air. But it may perhaps be noticed that when this particular
apparatus is working, it is always held in the hand, and that our
supposition about increasing the size or number of the chains would, as
a consequence, carry with it the necessity for having either an army
of persons, or a giant, to work the apparatus in its complete form. No
magic need be invoked to explain the working powers of an army or of a
giant.
[Illustration: THE GRINDSTONE PARADOX.]
One has often heard of the miller who wished to drive his water-wheel
by the water which the wheel pumped up to the "head-race," or supply
conduit. Well, here is such an arrangement devised many centuries ago.
On the left of the picture the water-wheel is shown receiving water
raised by the "chain" pump on the right, suitable gearing transmitting
the motion of the wheel to the pump.
[Illustration: THE MILLER'S DODGE FOR WORKING HIS MILL.]
Another class of devices for getting work out of a machine which has
never been fed into it may be illustrated by what we may term the
"Grindstone" paradox. Its supposed action is due to the well-known fact
that articles when immersed in a liquid tend to float. Take a block
of wood the shape of a grindstone and immerse one half of its mass in
a vertical tank of water. The flotative power of the water will cause
this half to rise continually, and to consequently keep the block
constantly turning round its axle. We leave the explanation of this
paradox to the reader. Sufficient is it to say here that, alas! brutal
experiment proves it will not work.
[Illustration: CONCERTINA MACHINE.]
Closely allied to the "Grindstone" paradox is the "Concertina" machine,
where a series of weighted concertina-like chambers attached to a band
passing round pulleys collapse when descending into a tank of water,
but expand, and therefore become lighter, when the other side of the
band is reached. The expanded chambers on the left of the picture act
like a series of corks, while on the right the closed chambers act
as dead weights. By this means it was anticipated continuous rotary
movement would be obtained.
[Illustration: WATER MOTOR CAR.]
Another favourite scheme is to employ the well-known property of
liquids to rise of their own accord against the force of gravity when
in microscopic channels, such as are found in all porous bodies,
this property of rising being due to what is known as "capillary
attraction." For instance, it is a matter of everyday observation that
oil ascends a wick, water passes up over the edge of a basin through
a towel which, partially immersed in the water, hangs over the side.
Some idea of the enormous power of this property of ascending is given
by a celebrated French _savant_ who has found that capillary action
is capable, under favourable circumstances, of exerting a pressure
four or five times as great as that of the atmosphere, and who thinks
this is largely efficient in promoting the ascent of sap in plants.
Consequently, if this natural uprising property of liquids could be
only laid hold of, the problem of getting work for nothing, so thinks
our schemer, would thereby be solved. We have selected for illustration
a form of apparatus where, on the left, a bundle of flexible sheets is
placed almost in contact, so that the liquid into which they are dipped
rises in the microscopic spaces between them. This provides a "head" of
water, which is expected to overbalance the right hand of the system,
where the sheets have been separated by the wires of a grid, or other
equivalent, so as to destroy the capillary action on that side.
[Illustration: A CAPILLARY MOTOR.]
At the present time the public mind is so greatly agitated on the
subject of horseless vehicles, that an illustration of the perpetual
motionist's ideas on the subject is given. Here the weight of the
vehicle and its occupants bears upon water in cylinders supported on
the wheels. The pressure produced in the water in this way is conveyed
by means of pipes to the back of the carriage, where it is employed
to push the vehicle along. Such speed the inventor in this case
expected to obtain, that, with great forethought, he has provided a
"cow-catcher" at the front, by means of which unfortunate persons who
inadvertently get in the way are to be gently waived aside. Of course,
the larger the number of people carried, the greater the pressure on
the water, and hence, in the inventor's mind, so much greater the
speed.
THE STIR OUTSIDE THE CAFÉ ROYAL.
A STORY OF MISS VAN SNOOP, DETECTIVE.
BY CLARENCE ROOK.
_Illustrated by Hal Hurst._