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THE INVENTIONS OF THE IDIOT
by
JOHN KENDRICK BANGS
Author of "A House-Boat on the Styx"
"The Pursuit of the House-Boat"
"Olympian Nights" Etc. Etc.
New York and London
Harper & Brothers Publishers
1904
Copyright, 1903, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
_All rights reserved._
Published April, 1904
TO
YOU
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE CULINARY GUILD 1
II. A SUGGESTION FOR THE CABLE-CARS 16
III. THE TRANSATLANTIC TROLLEY COMPANY 31
IV. THE INCORPORATION OF THE IDIOT 47
V. UNIVERSITY EXTENSION 64
VI. SOCIAL EXPANSION 79
VII. A BEGGAR'S HAND-BOOK 96
VIII. PROGRESSIVE WAFFLES 112
IX. A CLEARING-HOUSE FOR POETS 127
X. SOME ELECTRICAL SUGGESTIONS 142
XI. CONCERNING CHILDREN 158
XII. DREAMALINE 172
THE INVENTIONS OF THE IDIOT
I
The Culinary Guild
It was before the Idiot's marriage, and in the days when he was nothing
more than a plain boarder in Mrs. Smithers-Pedagog's High-class Home for
Single Gentlemen, that he put what the School-master termed his "alleged
mind" on plans for the amelioration of the condition of the civilized.
"The trials of the barbarian are really nothing as compared with the
tribulations of civilized man," he said, as the waitress passed him a
piece of steak that had been burned to a crisp. "In the Cannibal Islands
a cook who would send a piece of broiled missionary to her employer's
table in this condition would herself be roasted before another day had
dawned. We, however, must grin and bear it, because our esteemed
landlady cannot find anywhere in this town a woman better suited for the
labors of the kitchen than the blank she has had the misfortune to draw
in the culinary lottery, familiarly known to us, her victims, as
Bridget."
"This is an exceptional case," said Mr. Pedagog. "We haven't had a steak
like this before in several weeks."
"True," returned the Idiot. "This is a sirloin, I believe. The last
steak we had was a rump steak, and it was not burned to a crisp, I
admit. It was only boiled, if I remember rightly, by mistake; Bridget
having lost her fifth consecutive cousin in ten days the night before,
and being in consequence so prostrated that she could not tell a
gridiron from a lawn-mower."
"Well, you know the popular superstition, Mr. Idiot," said the Poet.
"The devil sends the cooks."
"I don't believe it," retorted the Idiot. "That's one of those proverbs
that haven't a particle of truth in 'em--nor a foundation in reason
either, like 'Never look a gift horse in the mouth.' Of all absurd
advice ever given to man by a thoughtless thinker, that, I think, bears
the palm. I know a man who didn't look a gift horse in the mouth, and
the consequence was that he accepted a horse that was twenty-eight years
old. The beast died in his stables three days later, and the beneficiary
had to pay five dollars to have him carted away. As for the devil
sending the cooks, I haven't any faith in the theory. Any person who had
come from the devil would know how to manage a fire better than
ninety-nine per cent. of the cooks ever born. It would be a good thing
if every one of 'em were forced to serve an apprenticeship with the
Prince of Darkness. However, steak like this serves a good purpose. It
serves to bind our little circle more firmly together. There's nothing
like mutual suffering to increase the sympathy that should exist between
men situated as we are; and as for Mrs. Smithers-Pedagog, I wish her to
understand distinctly that I am criticising the cook and not herself. If
this particular dainty had been prepared by her own fair hand, I doubt
not I should want more of it."
"I thank you," returned the landlady, somewhat mollified by this remark.
"If I had more time I should occasionally do the cooking myself, but,
as it is, I am overwhelmed with work."
"I can bear witness to that," observed Mr. Whitechoker. "Mrs.
Smithers-Pedagog is one of the most useful ladies in my congregation. If
it were not for her, many a heathen would be going without garments
to-day."
"Well, I don't like to criticise," said the Idiot, "but I think the
heathen at home should be considered before the heathen abroad. If your
congregation would have a guild to look after such heathen as the Poet
and the Doctor and myself, I am convinced it would be more appreciated
by those who benefited by its labors than it is at present by the
barbarians who try to wear the misfits it sends out. A Christian whose
plain but honest breakfast is well cooked is apt to be far more grateful
than a barbarian who is wearing a pair of trousers made of calico and a
coat three sizes too small in the body and nine sizes too large in the
arms. I will go further. I believe that if the domestic heathen were
cared for they would do much better work, would earn better pay, and
would, out of mere gratitude, set apart a sufficiently large portion of
their increased earnings to be devoted to the purchase of tailor-made
costumes, which would please the cannibals better, far better, than the
amateur creations they now get. I know I'd contribute some of my
surplus."
"What would you have such a guild do?" queried Mr. Whitechoker.
"Do? There'd be so much for it to do that the members could hardly find
time to rest," returned the Idiot. "Do? Why, my dear sir, take this
house, for instance, and see what it could do here. What a boon it would
be for me if some kind-hearted person would come here once a week and
sew buttons on my clothes, darn my socks--in short, keep me mended. What
better work for one who desires to make the world brighter, happier, and
less sinful!"
"I fail to see how the world would be brighter, happier, or less sinful
if your suspender-buttons were kept firm, and your stockings darned, and
your wardrobe generally mended," said Mr. Pedagog. "I grant that such a
guild would be doing a noble work if it would take you in hand and
correct many of your impressions, revise your well-known facts so as to
bring them more in accord with indubitable truths, and impart to your
customs some of that polish which you so earnestly strive for in your
dress."
"Thank you," said the Idiot, suavely. "But I don't wish to overburden
the kind ladies to whom I refer. If my costumes could be looked after I
might find time to look after my customs, and, I assure you, Mr.
Pedagog, if at any time you will undertake to deliver a course of
lectures on Etiquette, I will gladly subscribe for two orchestra-chairs
and endeavor to occupy both of them. At any rate, to return to the main
point, I claim that the world would be happier and brighter and less
sinful if the domestic heathen were kept mended by such a guild, and I
challenge any one here to deny, even on so slight a basis as the loose
suspender-button, the truth of what I say. When I arise in the morning
and find a button gone, do I make genial remarks about the joys of life?
I do not. I use words. Sometimes one word, which need not be repeated
here. I am unhappy, and, being unhappy, the world seems dark and dreary,
and in speaking impatiently, though very much to the point, as I do, I
am guilty of an offence that is sinful. With such a start in the
morning, I come here to the table. Mr. Pedagog sees that I am not quite
myself. He asks me if I am not feeling well, an irritating question at
any time, but particularly so to a man with a suspender-button gone. I
retort. He re-retorts, until our converse is warmer than the coffee, and
our relations colder than the waffles. Finally I leave the house,
slamming the door behind me, structurally weakening the house, and go to
business, where I wreak my vengeance upon the second clerk, who takes it
out of the office-boy, who goes home and vents his wrath on his little
sister, who, goaded into recklessness, teases the baby until he yells
and gets spanked by his mother for being noisy. Now, why should a loose
suspender-button be allowed to subject that baby to such humiliation,
and who can deny that, if it had been properly sewed on by a guild, such
as I have mentioned, the baby never would have been spanked for the
causes mentioned? What is _your_ answer, Mr. Whitechoker?"
"Truly, I am so breathless at your logic that I cannot reason," said the
Minister. "But haven't we digressed a little? We were speaking of cooks,
and we conclude with a pathetic little allegory about a suspender-button
and a baby that is not only teased but spanked."
"The baby could get the same spanking for reasons based on the
shortcomings of the cooks," said the Idiot. "I am irritated when I am
served with green pease hard enough to batter down Gibraltar if properly
aimed; when my coffee is a warmed-over reminiscence of last night's
demi-tasse, I leave the house in a frame of mind that bodes ill for the
junior clerk, and the effect on the baby is ultimately the same."
"And--er--you'd have the ladies whose energies are now devoted towards
the clothing of the heathen come here and do the cooking?" queried the
School-master.
"I leave if they do," said the Doctor. "I have seen too much of the
effects of amateur cookery in my profession to want any of it. They are
good cooks in theory, but not in practice."
"There you have it!" said the Idiot, triumphantly. "Right in a nutshell.
That's where the cooks are always weak. They have none of the theory and
all of the practice. If they based practice on theory, they'd cook
better. Wherefore let your theoretical cooks seek out the practical and
instruct them in the principles of the culinary art. Think of what
twelve ladies could do; twelve ladies trained in the sewing-circle to
talk rapidly, working five hours a day apiece, could devote an hour a
week to three hundred and sixty cooks, and tell them practically all
they themselves know in that time; and if, in addition to this, twelve
other ladies, forming an auxiliary guild, would make dresses and bonnets
and things for the same cooks, instead of for the cannibals, it would
keep them good-natured."
"Splendid scheme!" said the Doctor. "So practical. Your brain must weigh
half an ounce."
"I've never had it weighed," said the Idiot, "but, I fancy, it's a good
one. It's the only one I have, anyhow, and it's done me good service,
and shows no signs of softening. But, returning to the cooks,
good-nature is as essential to the making of a good cook as are apples
to the making of a dumpling. You can't associate the word dumpling with
ill-nature, and just as the poet throws himself into his work, and as
he is of a cheerful or a mournful disposition, so does his work appear
cheerful or mournful, so do the productions of a cook take on the
attributes of their maker. A dyspeptic cook will prepare food in a
manner so indigestible that it were ruin to partake of it. A
light-hearted cook will make light bread; a pessimistic cook will serve
flour bricks in lieu thereof."
"I think possibly you are right when you say that," said the Doctor. "I
have myself observed that the people who sing at their work do the best
work."
"But the worst singing," growled the School-master.
"That may be true," put in the Idiot; "but you cannot expect a cook on
sixteen dollars a month to be a prima-donna. Now, if Mr. Whitechoker
will undertake to start a sewing-circle in his church for people who
don't care to wear clothing, but to sow the seeds of concord and good
cookery throughout the kitchens of this land, I am prepared to prophesy
that at the end of the year there will be more happiness and less
depression in this part of the world; and once eliminate dyspepsia from
our midst, and get civilization and happiness controvertible terms, then
you will find your foreign missionary funds waxing so fat that instead
of the amateur garments for the heathen you now send them, you will be
able to open an account at Worth's and Poole's for every barbarian in
creation. The scheme for the sewing on of suspender-buttons and the
miscellaneous mending that needs to be done for lone-lorn savages like
myself might be left in abeyance until the culinary scheme has been
established. Bachelors constitute a class, a small class only, of
humanity, but the regeneration of cooks is a universal need."
"I think your scheme is certainly a picturesque one and novel," said Mr.
Whitechoker. "There seems to be a good deal in it. Don't you think so,
Mr. Pedagog?"
"Yes--I do," said Mr. Pedagog, wearily. "A great deal--of language."
And amid the laugh at his expense which followed, the Idiot, joining in,
departed.
II
A Suggestion for the Cable-cars
"Heigh-ho!" sighed the Idiot, rubbing his eyes sleepily. "This is a
weary world."
"What? This from you?" smiled the Poet. "I never expected to hear that
plaint from a man of your cheerful disposition."
"Humph!" said the Idiot, with difficulty repressing a yawn. "Humph! and
I may add, likewise, tut! What do you take me for--an insulated
sun-beam? I can't help it if shadows camp across my horizon
occasionally. I wouldn't give a cent for the man who never had his
moments of misery. It takes night to enable us to appreciate daytime.
Misery is a foil necessary to the full appreciation of joy. I'm glad I
am sort of down in the mouth to-day. I'll be all right to-morrow, and
I'll enjoy to-morrow all the more for to-day's megrim. But for the
present, I repeat, this is a weary world."
"Oh, I don't think so," observed the School-master. "The world doesn't
seem to me to betray any signs of weariness. It got to work at the usual
hour this morning, and, as far as I can judge, has been revolving at the
usual rate of speed ever since."
"The Idiot's mistake is a common one," put in the Doctor. "I find it
frequently in my practice."
"That's a confession," retorted the Idiot. "Do you find out these
mistakes in your practice before or after the death of the patient?"
"That mistake," continued the Doctor, paying apparently little heed to
the Idiot's remark--"that mistake lies in the Idiot's assumption that
he is himself the world. He regards himself as the earth, as all of
life, and, because he happens to be weary, the world is a weary one."
"It isn't a fatal disease, is it?" queried the Idiot, anxiously. "I am
not likely to become so impressed with that idea, for instance, that I
shall have to be put in a padded cell and manacled so that I may not
turn perpetual handsprings under the hallucination that, being the
world, it is my duty to revolve?"
"No," replied the Doctor, with a laugh. "No, indeed. That is not at all
likely to happen, but I think it would be a good idea if you were to
carry the hallucination out far enough to put a cake of ice on your
head, assuming that to be the north pole, and cool off that brain of
yours."
"That is a good idea," returned the Idiot; "and if Mary will bring me
the ice that was used to cool the coffee this morning, I shall be
pleased to try the experiment. Meanwhile, this is a weary world."
"Then why under the canopy don't you leave it and go to some other
world?" snapped Mr. Pedagog. "You are under no obligation to remain
here. With a river on either side of the city, and a New York Juggernaut
Company, Unlimited, running trolley-cars up and down two of our more
prominent highways, suicide is within the reach of all. Of course, we
should be sorry to lose you, in a way, but I have known men to recover
from even greater afflictions than that."
"Thank you for the suggestion," replied the Idiot, transferring four
large, porous buckwheat-cakes to his plate. "Thank you very much, but I
have a pleasanter and more lingering method of suicide right here. Death
by buckwheat-cakes is like being pierced by a Toledo blade. You do not
realize the terrors of your situation until you cease to be susceptible
to them. Furthermore, I do not believe in suicide. It is, in my
judgment, the worst crime a man can commit, and I cannot but admire the
remarkable discernment evinced by the Fates in making of it its own
inevitable capital punishment. A man may commit murder and escape death,
but in the commission of suicide he is sure of execution. Just as Virtue
is its own reward, so is Suicide its own amercement."
"Been reading the dictionary again?" asked the Poet.
"No, not exactly," said the Idiot, with a smile, "but--it's a kind of
joke on me, I suppose--I have just been stuck, to use a polite term, on
a book called Roget's _Thesaurus_, and, if I want to get hold of a new
word that will increase my seeming importance to the community, I turn
to it. That's where I got 'amercement.' I don't hold that its use in
this especial case is beyond cavil--that's another Thesaurian term--but
I don't suppose any one here would notice that fact. It goes here, and I
shall not use it elsewhere."
"I am interested to know how _you_ ever came to be the owner of a
_Thesaurus_," said the School-master, with a grim smile at the idea of
the Idiot having such a book in his possession. "Except on the score of
affinities. You are both very wordy."
"Meaning pleonastic, I presume," retorted the Idiot.
"I beg your pardon?" said the School-master.
"Never mind," said the Idiot. "I won't press the analogy, but I will say
that those who are themselves periphrastic should avoid criticising
others for being ambaginous."
"I think you mean ambiguous," said the School-master, elevating his
eyebrows in triumph.
"I thought you'd think that," retorted the Idiot. "That's why I used the
word 'ambaginous.' I'll lend you my dictionary to freshen up your
phraseology. Meanwhile, I'll tell you how I happened to get a
_Thesaurus_. I thought it was an animal, and when I saw that a New York
bookseller had a lot of them marked down from two dollars to one, I sent
and got one. I thought it was strange for a bookseller to be selling
rare animals, but that was his business, not mine; and as I was anxious
to see what kind of a creature a _Thesaurus_ was, I invested. When I
found out it was a book and not a tame relic of the antediluvian animal
kingdom, I thought I wouldn't say anything about it, but you people here
are so inquisitive you've learned my secret."
"And wasn't it an animal?" asked Mrs. Smithers-Pedagog.
"My dear--my _dear_!" ejaculated Mr. Pedagog. "Pray--ah--I beg of you,
do not enter into this discussion."
"No, Mrs. Pedagog," observed the Idiot, "it was not. It was nothing more
than a book, which, when once you have read it, you would not be
without, since it gives your vocabulary a twist which makes you proof
against ninety-nine out of every one hundred conversationalists in the
world, no matter how weak your cause."
"I am beginning to understand the causes of your weariness," observed
Mr. Pedagog, acridly. "You have been memorizing syllables. Really, I
should think you were in danger of phonetic prostration."
"Not a bit of it," said the Idiot. "Those words are stimulating, not
depressing. I begin to feel better already, now that I have spoken them.
I am not half so weary as I was, but for my weariness I had good cause.
I suffered all night from a most frightful nightmare. It utterly
destroyed my rest."
"Welsh-rarebit?" queried the Genial Old Gentleman who occasionally
imbibed, with a tone of reproach. "If so, why was I not with you?"
"That question should be its own answer," replied the Idiot. "A man who
will eat a Welsh-rarebit alone is not only a person of a sullen
disposition, but of reckless mould as well. I would no sooner think of
braving a Welsh-rarebit unaccompanied than I would think of trying to
swim across the British Channel without a lifesaving boat following in
my wake."
"I question if so light a body as you could have a wake!" said Mr.
Pedagog, coldly.
"I am sorry, but I can't agree with you, Mr. Pedagog," said the
Bibliomaniac. "A tugboat, most insignificant of crafts, roils up the
surface of the sea more than an ocean steamer does. Fuss goes with
feathers more than with large bodies."
"Well, they're neither of 'em in it with a cake of soap for real,
bona-fide suds," said the Idiot, complacently, as he helped himself to
his thirteenth buckwheat-cake. "However, wakes have nothing to do with
the case. I had a most frightful dream, and it was not due to
Welsh-rarebits, but to my fatal weakness, which, not having my
_Thesaurus_ at hand, I must identify by the commonplace term of
courtesy. You may not have noticed it, but courtesy is my strong point."
"We haven't observed the fact," said Mr. Pedagog; "but what of it? Have
you been courteous to any one?"
"I have," replied the Idiot, "and a nightmare is what it brought me. I
rode up-town on a trolley-car last night, and I gave up my seat to
sixteen ladies, two of whom, by-the-way, thanked me."
"I don't see why more than one of them should thank you," sniffed the
landlady. "If a man gives up a trolley-car seat to sixteen ladies, only
one of them can occupy it."
"I stand corrected," said the Idiot. "I gave up a seat to ladies sixteen
times between City Hall and Twenty-third Street. I can't bring myself to
sit down while a woman stands, and every time I'd get a seat some woman
would get on the car. Hence it was that I gave up my seat to sixteen
ladies. Why two of them should thank me, considering the rules, I do not
know. It certainly is not the custom. At any rate, if I had walked
up-town, I should not have had more exercise than I got on that car,
bobbing up and down so many times, and lurching here and lurching there
every time the car stopped, started, or turned a corner. Whether it was
the thanks or the lurching I got, I don't know, but the incidents of
the ride were so strongly impressed upon me that I dreamed all night,
only in my dreams I was not giving up car seats. The first seat I gave
up to a woman in the dream was an eighty-thousand-dollar seat in the
Stock Exchange. It was expensive courtesy, but I did it, and mourned so
over the result that I waked up and discovered that it was but a dream.
Then I went to sleep again. This time I was at the opera. I had the best
seat in the house, when in came a woman who hadn't a chair. Same result.
I got up. She sat down, and I had to stand behind a pillar where I could
neither see nor hear. More grief; waked up again, more tired than when I
went to bed. In ten minutes I dozed off. Found myself an ambitious
statesman running for the Presidency. Was elected and inaugurated. Up
comes a Woman's Rights candidate. More courtesy. Gave up the
Presidential chair to her and went home to obscurity, when again I
awoke tireder than ever. Clock struck four. Fell asleep again. This time
I was prepared for anything that might happen. I found myself in a
trolley-car, but with me I had a perforated chair-bottom, such as the
street peddlers sell. Lady got aboard. I put the perforated chair-bottom
on my lap and invited her to sit down. She thanked me and did so. Then
another lady got on. The lady on my lap moved up and made room for the
second lady. She sat down. Between them they must have weighed three
hundred pounds. I could have stood that, but as time went on more ladies
got aboard, and every time that happened these first-comers would move
up and make room for them. How they did it I can't say, any more than I
can say how in real life three women can find room in a car-seat vacated
by a little child. They did the former just as they do the latter,
until finally I found myself flattened into the original bench like the
pattern figure of a carpet. I felt like an entaglio; thirty women by
actual count were pressing me to remain, as it were, but the worst of it
all was they none of them seemed to live anywhere. We rode on and on and
on, but nobody got off. I tried to move--and couldn't. We passed my
corner, but there I was fixed. I couldn't breathe, and so couldn't call
out, and I verily believe that if I hadn't finally waked up I should by
this time have reached Hong-Kong, for I have a distinct recollection of
passing through Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, and Honolulu. Finally, I
did wake, however, simply worn out with my night's rest, which,
gentlemen, is why I say, as I have already said, this is a weary world."
"Well, I don't blame you," said Mr. Whitechoker, kindly. "That was a
most remarkable dream."
"Yes," assented Mr. Pedagog. "But quite in line with his waking
thoughts."
"Very likely," said the Idiot, rising and preparing to depart. "It was
absurd in most of its features, but in one of them it was excellent. I
am going to see the president of the Electric Juggernaut Company, as you
call it, in regard to it to-day. I think there is money in that idea of
having an extra chair-seat for every passenger to hold in his lap. In
that way twice as many seated passengers can be accommodated, and
countless people with tender feet will be spared the pain of having
other wayfarers standing upon them."
III
The Transatlantic Trolley Company
"If I were a millionaire," began the Idiot one Sunday morning, as he and
his friends took their accustomed seats at the breakfast-table, "I would
devote a tenth of my income to the poor, a tenth to children's fresh-air
funds, and the balance to the education through travel of a dear and
intimate friend of mine."
"That would be a generous distribution of your wealth," said Mr.
Whitechoker, graciously. "But upon what would you live yourself?"
"I should stipulate in the bargain with my dear and intimate friend
that we should be inseparable; that wherever he should go I should go,
and that, of the funds devoted to his education through travel, one-half
should be paid to me as my commission for letting him into a good
thing."
"You certainly have good business sense," put in the Bibliomaniac. "I
wish I had had when I was collecting rare editions."
"Collecting rare books and a good business sense seldom go together, I
fancy," said the Idiot. "I began collecting books once, but I gave it up
and took to collecting coins. I chose my coin and devoted my time to
getting in that variety alone, and it has paid me."
"I don't exactly gather your meaning," said Mr. Whitechoker. "You chose
your coin?"
"Precisely. I said, 'Here! Most coin collectors spend their time looking
for one or two rare coins, for which, when they are found, they pay
fabulous prices. The result is oftentimes penury. I, on the other hand,
will look for coins of a common sort which do not command fabulous
prices.' So I chose United States five-dollar gold pieces, irrespective
of dates, for my collection, and the result is moderate affluence. I
have between sixty and a hundred of them at my savings-bank, and when I
have found it necessary to realize on them I have not experienced the
slightest difficulty in forcing them back into circulation at cost."
"You are a wise Idiot," said the Bibliomaniac, settling back in his
chair in a disgusted, tired sort of way. He had expected some sympathy
from the Idiot as a fellow-collector, even though their aims were
different. It is always difficult for a man whose ten-thousand-dollar
library has brought six hundred dollars in the auction-room to find,
even in the ranks of collectors, one who understands his woes and helps
him bear the burden thereof by expressions of confidence in his sanity.
"Then you believe in travel, do you?" asked the Doctor.
"I believe there is nothing broadens the mind so much," returned the
Idiot.
"But do you believe it will develop a mind where there isn't one?" asked
the School-master, unpleasantly. "Or, to put it more favorably, don't
you think there would be danger in taking the germ of a mind in a small
head and broadening it until it runs the risk of finding itself confined
to cramped quarters?"
"That is a question for a physician to answer," said the Idiot. "But, if
I were you, I wouldn't travel if I thought there was any such danger."
"_Tu quoque_," retorted the School-master, "is _not_ true repartee."
"I shall have to take your word for that," returned the Idiot, "since I
have not a Latin dictionary with me, and all the Latin I know is to be
found in the quotations in the back of my dictionary, like '_Status quo
ante_,' '_In vino veritas_,' and '_Et tu, Brute_.' However, as I said
before, I'd like to travel, and I would if it were not that the sea and
I are not on very good terms with each other. It makes me ill to cross
the East River on the bridge, I'm so susceptible to sea-sickness."
"You'd get over that in a very few days," said the Genial Old Gentleman
who occasionally imbibed. "I have crossed the ocean a dozen times, and
I'm never sea-sick after the third day out."
"Ah, but those three days!" said the Idiot. "They must resemble the
three days of grace on a note that you know you couldn't pay if you had
three years of grace. I couldn't stand them, I am afraid. Why, only
last summer I took a drive off in the country, and the motion of the
wagon going over the thank-ye-marms in the road made me so sea-sick
before I'd gone a mile that I wanted to lie down and die. I think I
should have done so if the horse hadn't run away and forced me to ride
back home whether I wanted to or not."
"You ought to fight that," said the Doctor. "By-and-by, if you give way
to a weakness of that sort, the creases in your morning newspaper will
affect you similarly as you read it. If you ever have a birthday, let us
know, and we'll help you to overcome the tendency by buying you a
baby-jumper for you to swing around in every morning until you get used
to the motion."
"It would be more to the purpose," replied the Idiot, "if you as a
physician would invent a preventive of sea-sickness. I'd buy a bottle
and go abroad at once on my coin collection if you would guarantee it
to kill or to cure instantaneously."
"There is such a nostrum," said the Doctor.
"There is, indeed," put in the Genial Old Gentleman who occasionally
imbibes. "I've tried it."
"And were you sea-sick?" asked the Doctor.
"I never knew," replied the Genial Old Gentleman. "It made me so ill
that I never thought to inquire what was the matter with me. But one
thing is certain, I'll take my sea-voyages straight after this."
"I'd like to go by rail," said the Idiot, after a moment's thought.
"That is a desire quite characteristic of you," said the School-master.
"It is so probable that you could. Why not say that you'd like to cross
the Atlantic on a tight-rope?"
"Because I have no such ambition," replied the Idiot. "Though it might
be fun if the tight-rope were a trolley-wire, and one could sit
comfortably in a spacious cab while speeding over the water. I should
think that would be exhilarating enough. Just imagine how fine it would
be on a stormy day to sit looking out of your cab-window far above the
surface of the raging and impotent sea, skipping along at electric
speed, and daring the waves to do their worst--that would be bliss."
"And so practical," growled the Bibliomaniac.
"Bliss rarely is practical," said the Idiot. "Bliss is a sort of mugwump
blessing--too full of the ideal and too barren in practicability."
"Well," said Mr. Whitechoker. "I don't know why we should say that
trolley-cars between New York and London never can be. If we had told
our grandfathers a hundred years ago that a cable for the transmission
of news could be laid under the sea, they would have laughed us to
scorn."
"That's true," said the School-master. "But we know more than our
grandfathers did."
"Well, rather," interrupted the Idiot. "My great-grandfather, who died
in 1799, had never even heard of Andrew Jackson, and if you had asked
him what he thought of Darwin, he'd have thought you were guying him."
"Respect for age, sir," retorted Mr. Pedagog, "restrains me from
characterizing your great-grandfather, if, as you intimate, he knew less
than you do. However, apart from the comparative lack of knowledge in
the Idiot's family, Mr. Whitechoker, you must remember that with the
advance of the centuries we have ourselves developed a certain amount of
brains--enough, at least, to understand that there is a limit even to
the possibilities of electricity. Now, when you say that just because
an Atlantic cable would have been regarded as an object of derision in
the eighteenth century, we should not deride one who suggests the
possibility of a marine trolley-road between London and New York in the
twentieth century, it appears to me that you are talking--er--talking--I
don't like to say nonsense to one of your cloth, but--"
"Through his hat is the idiom you are trying to recall, I think, Mr.
Pedagog," said the Idiot. "Mr. Whitechoker is talking through his hat is
what you mean to say?"
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Idiot," said the School-master; "but when I find
that I need your assistance in framing my conversation, I shall--er--I
shall give up talking. I mean to say that I do not think Mr. Whitechoker
can justify his conclusions, and talks without having given the subject
concerning which he has spoken due reflection. The cable runs along the
solid foundation of the bed of the sea. It is a simple matter,
comparatively, but a trolley-wire stretched across the ocean by the
simplest rules of gravitation could not be made to stay up."
"No doubt you are correct," said Mr. Whitechoker, meekly. "I did not
mean that I expected ever to see a trolley-road across the sea, but I
did mean to say that man has made such wonderful advances in the past
hundred years that we cannot really state the limit of his
possibilities. It is manifest that no one to-day can devise a plan by
means of which such a wire could be carried, but--"
"I fear you gentlemen would starve as inventors," said the Idiot.
"What's the matter with balloons?"
"Balloons for what?" retorted Mr. Pedagog.
"For holding up the trolley-wires," replied the Idiot. "It is perfectly
feasible. Fasten the ends of your wire in London and New York, and from
coast to coast station two lines of sufficient strength to keep the wire
raised as far above the level of the sea as you require. That's simple
enough."
"And what, pray, in this frenzy of the elements, this raging storm of
which you have spoken," said Mr. Pedagog, impatiently--"what would then
keep your balloons from blowing away?"
"The trolley-wire, of course," said the Idiot. Mr. Pedagog lapsed into a
hopelessly wrathful silence for a moment, and then he said:
"Well, I sincerely hope your plan is adopted, and that the promoters
will make you superintendent, with an office in the mid-ocean balloon."
"Thanks for your good wishes, Mr. Pedagog," the Idiot answered. "If they
are realized I shall remember them, and show my gratitude to you by
using my influence to have you put in charge of the gas service.
Meantime, however, it seems to me that our ocean steamships could be
developed along logical lines so that the trip from New York to
Liverpool could be made in a very much shorter period of time than is
now required."
"We are getting back to the common-sense again," said the Bibliomaniac.
"That is a proposition to which I agree. Ten years ago eight days was
considered a good trip. With the development of the twin-screw steamer
the time has been reduced to approximately six days."
"Or a saving, really, of two days because of the extra screw," said the
Idiot.
"Precisely," observed the Bibliomaniac.
"So that, provided there are extra screws enough, there isn't any reason
why the trip should not be made in two or three hours."
"Ah--what was that?" said the Bibliomaniac. "I don't exactly follow
you."
"One extra screw, you say, has saved two days?"
"Yes."
"Then two extra screws would save four days, three would save six days,
and five extra screws would send the boat over in approximately no
time," said the Idiot. "So, if it takes a man two hours to succumb to
sea-sickness, a boat going over in less than that time would eliminate
sea-sickness; more people would go; boats could run every hour, and Mr.
Whitechoker could have a European trip every week without deserting his
congregation."
"Inestimable boon!" cried Mr. Whitechoker, with a laugh.
"Wouldn't it be!" said the Idiot. "Unless I change my mind, I think I
shall stay in this country until this style of greyhound is perfected.
Then, gentlemen, I shall tear myself away from you, and seek knowledge
in foreign pastures."
"Well, I am sure," said Mr. Pedagog--"I am sure that we all hope you
will change your mind."
"Then you want me to go abroad?" said the Idiot.
"No," said Mr. Pedagog. "No--not so much that as that we feel if you
were to change your mind the change could not fail to be for the better.
A mind like yours ought to be changed."
"Well, I don't know," said the Idiot. "I suppose it would be a good
thing if I broke it up into smaller denominations, but I've had it so
long that I have become attached to it; but there is one thing about it,
there is plenty of it, so that in case any of you gentlemen find your
own insufficient I shall be only too happy to give you a piece of it
without charge. Meanwhile, if Mrs. Pedagog will kindly let me have my
bill for last week, I'll be obliged."
"It won't be ready until to-morrow, Mr. Idiot," said the landlady, in
surprise.
"I'm sorry," said the Idiot, rising. "My scribbling-paper has run out. I
wanted to put in this morning writing a poem on the back of it."
"A poem? What about?" said Mr. Pedagog, with an irritating chuckle.
"It was to be a triolet on Omniscience," said the Idiot. "And, strange
to say, sir, you were to be the hero, if by any possibility I could
squeeze you into a French form."
IV
The Incorporation of the Idiot
"How is business these days, Mr. Idiot?" asked the Poet, as the one
addressed laid down the morning paper with a careworn expression on his
face. "Good, I hope?"
"Fair, only," replied the Idiot. "My honored employer was quite blue
about things yesterday, and if I hadn't staved him off I think he'd have
proposed swapping places with me. He has said quite often of late that I
had the best of it, because all I had to earn was my salary, whereas he
had to earn my salary and his own living besides. I offered to give him
ten per cent. of my salary for ten per cent. of his living, but he said
he guessed he wouldn't, adding that I seemed to be as great an Idiot as
ever."
"I fancy he was right there," said Mr. Pedagog. "I should really like to
know how a man of your peculiar mental construction can be of the
slightest practical value to a banker. I ask the question in all
kindness, too, meaning to cast no reflections whatever upon either you
or your employer. You are a roaring success in your own line, which is
all any one could ask of you."
"There's hominy for you, as the darky said to the hotel guest," returned
the Idiot. "Any person who says that discord exists at this table
doesn't know what he is talking about. Even the oil and the vinegar mix
in the caster--that is, I judge they do from the oleaginous appearance
of the vinegar. But I am very useful to my employer, Mr. Pedagog. He
says frequently that he wouldn't know what not to do if it were not for
me."
"Aren't you losing control of your tongue?" queried the Bibliomaniac,
looking at the Idiot in wonderment. "Don't you mean that he says he
wouldn't know what to do if it were not for you?"
"No, I don't," said the Idiot. "I never lose control of my tongue. I
meant exactly what I said. Mr. Barlow told me, in so many words, that if
it were not for me he wouldn't know what _not_ to do. He calls me his
Back Action Patent Reversible Counsellor. If he is puzzled over an
intricate point he sends for me and says: 'Such and such a thing being
the case, Mr. Idiot, what would you do? Don't think about it, but tell
me on impulse. Your thoughtless opinions are worth more to me than I can
tell you.' So I tell him on impulse just what I should do, whereupon he
does the other thing, and comes out ahead in nine cases out of ten."
"And you confess it, eh?" said the Doctor, with a curve on his lip.
"I certainly do," said the Idiot. "The world must take me for what I am.
I'm not going to be one thing for myself, and build up a fictitious
Idiot for the world. The world calls you men of pretence conceited,
whereas, by pretending to be something that you are not, you give to the
world what I should call convincing evidence that you are not at all
conceited, but rather somewhat ashamed of what you know yourselves to
be. Now, I rather believe in conceit--real honest pride in yourself as
you know yourself to be. I am an Idiot, and it is my ambition to be a
perfect Idiot. If I had been born a jackass, I should have endeavored to
be a perfect jackass."
"You'd have found it easy," said Mr. Pedagog, dryly.
"Would I?" said the Idiot. "I'll have to take your word for it, sir, for
_I_ have never been a jackass, and so cannot form an opinion on the
subject."
"Pride goeth before a fall," said Mr. Whitechoker, seeing a chance to
work in a moral reflection.
"Exactly," said the Idiot. "Wherefore I admire pride. It is a
danger-signal that enables man to avoid the fall. If Adam had had any
pride he'd never have fallen--but speaking about my controlling my
tongue, it is not entirely out of the range of possibilities that I
shall lose control of myself."
"I expected that, sooner or later," said the Doctor. "Is it to be
Bloomingdale or a private mad-house you are going to?"
"Neither," replied the Idiot, calmly. "I shall stay here. For, as the
poet says,
"''Tis best to bear the ills we hov
Nor fly to those we know not of.'"
"Ho!" jeered the Poet. "I must confess, my dear Idiot, that I do not
think you are a success in quotation. Hamlet spoke those lines
differently."
"Shakespeare's Hamlet did. My little personal Shakespeare makes his
Hamlet an entirely different, less stilted sort of person," said the
Idiot.
"You have a personal Shakespeare, have you?" queried the Bibliomaniac.
"Of course I have," the Idiot answered. "Haven't you?"
"I have not," said the Bibliomaniac, shortly.
"Well, I'm sorry for you then," sighed the Idiot, putting a fried potato
in his mouth. "Very sorry. I wouldn't give a cent for another man's
ideals. I want my own ideals, and I have my own ideal of Shakespeare. In
fancy, Shakespeare and I have roamed over the fields of Warwickshire
together, and I've had more fun imagining the kind of things he and I
would have said to each other than I ever got out of his published
plays, few of which have escaped the ungentle hands of the devastators."
"You mean commentators, I imagine," said Mr. Pedagog.
"I do," said the Idiot. "It's all the same, whether you call them
commentors or devastators. The result is the same. New editions of
Shakespeare are issued every year, and people buy them to see not what
Shakespeare has written, but what new quip some opinionated devastator
has tried to fasten on his memory. In a hundred years from now the works
of Shakespeare will differ as much from what they are to-day as to-day's
versions differ from what they were when Shakespeare wrote them. It's
mighty discouraging to one like myself who would like to write works."
"You are convicted out of your own mouth," said the Bibliomaniac. "A
moment since you wasted your pity on me because I didn't mutilate
Shakespeare so as to make him my own, and now you attack the
commentators for doing precisely the same thing. They're as much
entitled to their opinions as you are to yours."
"Did you ever learn to draw parallels when you were in school?" asked
the Idiot.
"I did, and I think I've made a perfect parallel in this case. You
attack people in one breath for what you commiserate me for not doing in
another," said the Bibliomaniac.
"Not exactly," said the Idiot. "I don't object to the commentators for
commentating, but I do object to their putting out their versions of
Shakespeare as Shakespeare. I might as well have my edition published.
It certainly would be popular, especially where, in 'Julius Caesar,' I
introduce five Cassiuses and have them all fall on their swords
together with military precision, like a 'Florodora' sextette, for
instance."
"Well, I hope you'll never print such an atrocity as that," cried the
Bibliomaniac, hotly. "If there's one thing in literature without excuse
and utterly contemptible it is the comic version, the parody of a
masterpiece."
"You need have no fear on that score," returned the Idiot. "I haven't
time to rewrite Shakespeare, and, since I try never to stop short of
absolute completeness, I shall not embark on the enterprise. If I do,
however, I shall not do as the commentators do, and put on my title-page
'Shakespeare. Edited by Willie Wilkins,' but 'Shakespeare As He Might
Have Been, Had His Plays Been Written By An Idiot.'"
"I have no doubt that you could do great work with 'Hamlet,'" observed
the Poet.
"I think so myself," said the Idiot. "But I shall never write 'Hamlet.'
I don't want to have my fair fame exposed to the merciless hands of the
devastators."
"I shall never cease to regret," said Mr. Pedagog, after a moment's
thought, "that you are so timid. I should very much like to see 'The
Works of the Idiot.' I admit that my desire is more or less a morbid
one. It is quite on a plane with the feeling that prompts me to wish to
see that unfortunate man on the Bowery who exhibits his forehead, which
is sixteen inches high, beginning with his eyebrows, for a dime. The
strange, the bizarre in nature, has always interested me. The more
unnatural the nature, the more I gloat upon it. From that point of view
I do most earnestly hope that when you are inspired with a work you will
let me at least see it."
"Very well," answered the Idiot. "I shall put your name down as a
subscriber to the _Idiot Monthly Magazine_, which some of my friends
contemplate publishing. That is what I mean when I say I may shortly
lose control of myself. These friends of mine profess to have been so
impressed by my dicta that they have asked me if I would allow myself to
be incorporated into a stock company, the object of which should be to
transform my personality into printed pages. Hardly a day goes by but I
devote a portion of my time to a poem in which the thought is
conspicuous either by its absence or its presence. My schemes for the
amelioration of the condition of the civilized are notorious among those
who know me; my views on current topics are eagerly sought for; my
business instinct, as I have already told you, is invaluable to my
employer, and my fiction is unsurpassed in its fictitiousness. What more
is needed for a magazine? You have the poetry, the philanthropy, the
man of to-day, the fictitiousness, and the business instinct necessary
for the successful modern magazine all concentrated in one person. Why
not publish that person, say my friends, and I, feeling as I do that no
man has a right to the selfish enjoyment of the great gifts nature has
bestowed upon him, of course can only agree. I am to be incorporated
with a capital stock of five hundred thousand dollars. One hundred
thousand dollars' worth of myself I am to be permitted to retain; the
rest my friends will subscribe for at fifty cents on the dollar. If any
of you want shares in the enterprise I have no doubt you can be
accommodated."
"I'm obliged to you for the opportunity," said the Doctor. "But I have
to be very careful about things I take stock in, and in general I
regard you as a thing in which I should prefer not to take stock."
"And I," observed Mr. Pedagog--"I have never up to this time taken any
stock in you, and I make it a rule to be guided in life by precedent.
Therefore I must be counted out."
"I'll wait until you are listed at the Stock Exchange," put in the
Bibliomaniac, "while thanking you just the same for the chance."
"You can put me down for one share, to be paid for in poetry," said the
Poet, with a wink at the Idiot.
"You'll never make good," said the Idiot, slyly.
"And I," said the Genial Old Gentleman who occasionally imbibes, "shall
be most happy to take five shares to be paid for in advice and
high-balls. Moreover, if your company needs good-will to establish its
enterprise, you may count upon me for unlimited credit."
"Oh, as for that," said the Idiot, "I have plenty of good-will. Even
Mr. Pedagog supplies me with more of it than I deserve, though by no
means with all that I desire."
"That good-will is yours as an individual, Mr. Idiot," returned the
School-master. "As a corporation, however, I cannot permit you to trade
upon me even for that. Your value is, in my eyes, entirely too
fluctuating."