impossibility. Any man who thought he'd had enough at the end of a
thousand years could stop taking the Elixir and shuffle off the mortal
coil. As a matter of fact, not more than ten per cent. of the people in
the world would have any faith in the Elixir at all. I know people
to-day who do not take advantage of the many patent remedies that are
within their reach, preferring the mustard-plaster and catnip-tea of
their forefathers. There's where human nature works again. I believe
that if I were myself the discoverer of the formula for my mixture, and
for an advertisement secured a letter from a man saying, 'I was dying of
old age, having reached the advanced period of ninety-seven; I took two
bottles of your Electrical Elixir and am now celebrating my
twenty-fifth birthday again,' ninety-nine per cent. of the people who
read it would laugh and think it had strayed out of the funny column.
People lack confidence in their fellow-men--that's all; but if they were
twenty-five and eighteen that would all be changed. We are very trustful
at twenty-five and eighteen, which is one of the things I like about
those respective ages. When I was twenty-five I believed in everybody,
including myself. Now--well, I'm older. But enough of schemes, which I
must admit are somewhat visionary--as the telephone would have seemed
one hundred years ago. Let us come down to realities in electricity. I
can't see why more is not made of the phonograph for the benefit of the
public. Take a man like Chauncey M. De Choate. He goes here and he goes
there to make speeches, when I've no doubt he'd much prefer to stay at
home cutting coupons off his bonds. Why can't the phonograph voice do
_his_ duty? Instead of making the same speech over and over again, why
can't some electrician so improve the phonograph that De Choate can say
what he has to say through a funnel, have it impressed on a cylinder,
duplicated and reduplicated and scattered broadcast over the world? If
Mr. Edison could impart what poets call stentorian tones to the
phonograph, he'd be doing a great and noble work. Again, for smaller
things, like a dance, Why can't the phonograph be made useful at a ball?
I attended one the other night, and when I wanted to dance the two-step
the band played the polka; if I wished the polka it played a waltz. Some
men can only dance the two-step--they don't know the waltz, the polka,
or the schottische. Now why can't the phonograph come to the rescue? In
almost any hotel in New York you can drop a nickel in a slot and hear
Sousa's band on the phonograph. Why not extend the principle and have a
phonograph for men who can dance nothing but the two-step, charged with
'The Washington Post March,' and supplied with four tubes with receivers
to put in the ears of the listeners? Make it small enough for a man to
carry in his pocket; then at a ball he could go up to a young lady, ask
her to dance, put two of the receivers in her ears, two in his, and trip
the light fantastic toe utterly independently of what other people were
dancing. It's possible. Mr. Edison could do it in five minutes, and
every one would be satisfied. It might be rather droll to see two people
dancing the two-step while eight others were fastened on to a lanciers
phonograph, and a dozen or more other couples were dancing respectively
the waltz, schottische, and Virginia reel, but we'd soon get used to
that, and no man need become a wall-flower because he couldn't dance the
dance that happened to be on. Furthermore, you'd be able to do away with
the musicians, who always cast a pall over dances because of their
superiority to the rest of the world in general and the dancers in
particular."
"How about your couple that prefer to sit out the dance on the stairs?"
said the Poet, who, in common with the Idiot, knew several things about
dances that Messrs. Pedagog and Whitechoker did not.
"It would be particularly attractive to them," said the Idiot. "They
could sit on the stairs and wax sentimental over any dreamy air the man
happened to have in his vest-pocket. He could arrange all that
beforehand--find out what song she thought divinest, and go loaded
accordingly. And as for the things that usually happen on stairs at
dances, as well as in conservatories at balls, with the aid of a
phonograph a man could propose to a girl in the presence of a thousand
people, and nobody but the maiden herself would be the wiser. I tell
you, gentlemen," the Idiot added, enthusiastically, as he rose to
depart, "if the phonograph people only knew their power they'd do great
things. The patent vest-pocket phonograph for music at balls and
proposals for bashful men alone would make their fortunes if they only
could see it. I almost wish I were an electrician and not an Idiot."
With which he left the room, and Mr. Pedagog whispered to Mrs. Pedagog
that while he considered the Idiot very much of an idiot, there was no
denying that at times he did get hold of ideas that were not wholly bad.
"That's true," said the good landlady. "I think if you had proposed to
me through a phonograph I should not have had to guess at what you meant
and lead you on to express yourself more clearly. I didn't want to say
yes until I was fully convinced that you meant what you didn't seem able
to say."
XI
Concerning Children
The Poet had been away for a week, and on his return to his accustomed
post at the breakfast-table seemed but a shadow of his former self. His
eyes were heavy and his long locks appeared straggly enough for a man of
far more extended reputation as a singer of melodious verse.
"To judge from your appearance, Mr. Poet," said the Idiot, after
welcoming his friend, "you've had a lively vacation. You certainly do
not look as if you had devoted much of it to sleep."
"I haven't," said the Poet, wearily, "I haven't averaged more than two
hours of sleep daily since I went away."
"I thought you told me you were going off into the country for a rest?"
observed the Idiot.
"I did--and this is what comes of it," returned the Poet. "I went to
visit my sister up in Saratoga County. She has seven children."
"Aha!" smiled the Idiot. "That's it, is it--well, I can sympathize with
you. I've had experience with youngsters myself. I love 'em, but I like
to take 'em on the instalment plan--very little at a time. I have a
small cousin with a capacity for play and impudence that can't be
equalled. His mother wrote me once and asked if I thought Hagenbeck, the
wild-animal tamer, could be induced to take him in hand."
"That's the kind," put in the Poet, his face lighting up a little upon
discovering that there was some one at least at the board who could
sympathize with him. "My sister's seven are all of the wild-animal
variety. I'd rather fall in with seven tigers than put in another week
with my beloved nephews and nieces."
"Did they play Alp with you?" the Idiot asked, with a grin.
"Alp?" said the Poet. "No--not that I know of. They may have, however. I
was hardly conscious of what they were doing the last two days of my
stay there. They simply overpowered me, and I gave in and became a toy
for the time."
"It isn't much fun being a toy," said the Idiot. "I think I'd rather
play Alp."
"What on earth is Alp?" asked Mr. Pedagog, his curiosity aroused. "I've
heard enough absurd names for games in the last five years, but I must
say, for pure idiocy and lack of suggestiveness, the name of Alp
surpasses all."
"That's as it should be," said the Idiot. "My small cousin invented
Alp, and anything that boy does is apt to surpass all. He takes after me
in some things. But Alp, while it may seem to lack suggestiveness as a
name, is really just the name for the game. It's very simple. It is
played by one Alp and as many chamois as desire to take a hand. As a
rule the man plays the Alp and the children are the chamois. The man
gets down on his hands and knees, puts his head on the floor, and has a
white rug put on his back, the idea being that he is an Alp and the rug
represents its snow-clad top."
"And the chamois?" asked Mr. Whitechoker.
"The chamois climbs the Alp and jumps about on the top of it," said the
Idiot. "My experience, based upon two hours a day of it for ten
consecutive days, is that it's fun for the chamois but rough on the
Alp; and I got so after a while that I really preferred business to
pleasure and gave up playing Alp to return to work before my vacation
was half over."
"How do you score in this game of Alp?" said Mr. Pedagog, smiling
broadly as he thought of there being an embryo idiot somewhere who could
discomfit the one fate had thrown across his path.
"I never had the strength to inquire," said the Idiot. "But my
impression is that the game is to see which has the greater endurance,
the chamois or the Alp. The one that gets tired of playing first loses.
I always lost. My small cousin is a storehouse of nervous energy. I
believe he could play choo-choo cars with a real engine and last longer
than the engine--which being the case, I couldn't hope to hold out
against him."
"My nephews didn't play Alp," said the Poet. "I believe Alp would have
been a positive relief to me. They made me tell them stories and poems
from morning until night, and all night too, for one of them shared his
room with me, and the worst of it all was that they all had to be new
stories and new poems, so I was kept composing from one week's end to
the other."
"Why weren't you firm with them and say you wouldn't, and let that end
it?" said Mr. Pedagog.
"Ha--ha!" laughed the Idiot. "That's fine, isn't it, Mr. Poet? It's very
evident, Mr. Pedagog, that you're not acquainted with children. Now, my
small cousin can make the same appeal over and over again in a hundred
and fifty different ways. You may have the courage to say no a hundred
and forty-nine times, but I have yet to meet the man who could make his
no good with a boy of real persistent spirit. I can't do it. I've
tried, but I've had to give in sooner or later."
"Same way with me, multiplied by seven," said the Poet, with difficulty
repressing a yawn. "I tried the no business on the morning of the third
day, and gave it up as a hopeless case before the clock struck twelve."
"I'd teach 'em," said Mr. Pedagog.
"You'd have to learn 'em first," retorted the Idiot. "You can't do
anything with children unless you understand them. You've got to
remember several things when you have small boys to deal with. In the
first place, they are a great deal more alert than you are. They are a
great deal more energetic; they know what they want, and in getting it
they haven't any dignity to restrain them, wherein they have a distinct
advantage over you. Worst of all, down in your secret heart you want to
laugh, even when they most affront you."
"I don't," said Mr. Pedagog, shortly.
"And why? Because you don't know them, cannot sympathize with them, and
look upon them as evils to be tolerated rather than little minds to be
cultivated. Hard a time as I have had as an Alp, I'd feel as if a great
hole had been punched in my life if anything should deprive me of my
cousin Sammie. He knows it and I know it, and that is why we are chums,"
said the Idiot. "What I like about Sammie is that he believes in me," he
added, a little wistfully. "I wouldn't mind doing that myself--if I
could."
"You might think differently if you suffered from seven Sammies the way
the Poet does," said the Bibliomaniac.
"There couldn't be seven Sammies," said the Idiot. "Sammie is unique--to
me. But I am not at all narrow in this matter. I can very well imagine
how Sammie could be very disagreeable to some people. I shouldn't care
much for Alp, I suppose, if when night came on Sammie didn't climb up on
my lap and tell me he thought I was the greatest man that ever lived
next to his mother and father. That's the thing, Mr. Pedagog, that makes
Alp tolerable--it's the sugar sauce to the batter pudding. There's a
good deal of plain batter in the pudding, but with the sauce generously
mixed in you don't mind it so much. That boy would be willing to go to
sleep on a railway track if I told him I'd stand between him and the
express train. If I told him I could hammer down Gibraltar with putty
he'd believe it, and bring me his putty-blower to help along in the
great work. That's why I think a man's so much better off if he is a
father. Somebody has fixed a standard for him which, while he may know
he can't live up to it, he'll try to live up to, and by aiming high he
won't be so apt to hit low as he otherwise might. As Sammie's father
once said to me: 'By Jove, Idiot,' he said, 'if men could _only_ be what
their children think them!'"
"Nevertheless they should be governed, curbed, brought up!" said the
Bibliomaniac.
"They should, indeed," said the Idiot. "And in such a fashion that when
they are governed, curbed, and brought up they do not realize that they
have been governed, curbed, and brought up. The man who plays the tyrant
with his children isn't the man for me. Give me the man who, like my
father, is his son's intimate, personal friend, his confidant, his chum.
It may have worked badly in my case. I don't think it has--in any event,
if I were ever the father of a boy I'd try to make him feel that I was
not a despot in whose hands he was powerless, but a mainstay to fall
back on when things seemed to be going wrong--fountain-head of good
advice, a sympathizer--in short, a chum."
"You certainly draw a pleasant picture," said Mr. Whitechoker, kindly.
"Thank you," said the Idiot. "It's not original with me. My father drew
it. But despite my personal regard for Sammie, I do think something
ought to be done to alleviate the sufferings of the parent. Take the
mother of a boy like Sammie, for instance. She has him all day and
generally all night. Sammie's father goes to business at eight o'clock
and returns at six, thinking he has worked hard, and wonders why it is
that Sammie's mother looks so confoundedly tired. It makes him slightly
irritable. She has been at home taking things easy all day. He has been
in town working like a dog. What right has she to be tired? He doesn't
realize that she has had to entertain Sammie at those hours of the day
when Sammie is in his best form. She has found him trying to turn
somersaults at the top of the back stairs; she has patiently borne his
musical efforts on the piano, upon which he practises daily for a few
minutes, generally with a hammer or a stick, or something else equally
well calculated to beautify the keys; she has had to interfere in
Sammie's well-meant efforts to instruct his small brother in the art of
being an Indian who can whoop and scalp all in the same breath, thereby
incurring for the moment Sammie's undying hatred; she has heard Sammie
using language which an inconsiderate hired man has not scrupled to use
in Sammie's presence; she has, with terror in her soul, watched him at
play with a knife which some friend of the family who admires Sammie had
given him, and has again incurred his enmity by finally, to avoid
nervous prostration, taken that treasure from him. In short, she has
passed a day of real tragedy. Sammie is farce to me, comedy to his
father, and tragedy to his mother. Cannot something be done for her? Is
there no way by means of which Sammie can be entertained during the day,
for entertained he must be, that does not utterly destroy the nervous
system of his mother? Can't some inventive genius who has studied the
small boy, who knows the little ins and outs of his nature, and who,
above all, sympathizes with those ins and outs, put his mind on the life
of the woman of domestic inclination, and do something to make her life
less of a burden and more of a joy?"
"You are the man to do it," said the Bibliomaniac. "An inventive genius
such as you are ought to be able to solve the problem."
"Perhaps he ought to be," said the Idiot; "but we are not all what we
ought to be, I among the number. Almost anything seems possible to me
until I think of the mother at home all day with a dear, sweet, bright,
energetic boy like Sammie. Then, I confess, I am utterly at a loss to
know what to do."
And then, as none of the boarders had any solution of the problem to
suggest, I presume there was none among them who knew "How To Be
Tranquil Though A Mother."
Perhaps when women take up invention matters will seem more hopeful.
XII
Dreamaline
"Well, Mr. Idiot," said Mr. Pedagog, as the guests gathered about the
table, "how goes the noble art of invention with you? You've been at it
for some time now. Do you find that you have succeeded in your
self-imposed mission and made the condition of the civilized less
unbearable?"
"Frankly, Mr. Pedagog, I have failed," said the Idiot, sadly. "Failed
egregiously. I cannot find that of all the many schemes I have evolved
for the benefit of the human race any single one has been adopted by
those who would be benefited. Wherefore, with the exception of
Dreamaline, which I have not yet developed to my satisfaction, I shall
do no more inventing. What is the use? Even you, gentlemen, here have
tacitly declined to accept my plan for the elimination of irritation on
Waffle Days, a plan at once simple, picturesque, and efficacious. With
such discouragement at home, what hope have I for better fortune
abroad?"
"It is dreadful to be an unappreciated genius!" said the Bibliomaniac,
gruffly. "It's better to be a plain lunatic. A plain lunatic is at least
free from the consciousness of failure."
"Nevertheless, I'd rather be myself than any one else at this board,"
rejoined the Idiot. "Unappreciated though I be, I am at least happy.
Consciousness of failure need not necessarily destroy one's happiness.
If I do the best I can with the tools I have I needn't weep because I
fail, and with his consciousness of failure the unappreciated genius
always has the consolation of knowing that it is not he but the world
that is wrong. If I am a philanthropist and offer a thousand dollars to
a charity, and the charity declines to accept it because I happen to
have made it out of my interest in 'A Widows' and Orphans' Speculation
Company, Large Losses a Surety,' it is the charity that loses, not I. So
with my plans. Social expansion is not taken up by society--who dies, I
or society? Capitalists decline to consider my proposition for a General
Poetry Trust and Supply Company. Who loses a fine chance, I or the
capitalists? I may be a little discouraged for the time being, but what
of that? Invention isn't the only occupation in the world for me. I can
give up Philanthropy and take up Misanthropy in a moment if I want
to--and with Dreamaline I can rule the world."
"Ah--just what is this Dreamaline?" asked Mr. Whitechoker, interested.
"That, sir, is the question which I am now trying to answer for myself,"
returned the Idiot. "If I could answer it, as I have said, I could rule
the world--everybody could rule the world; that is to say, his own
world. It is based on an old idea which has been found by some to be
practicable, but it has never been developed to the point which I hope
to attain."
"Wake me up when he gets to the point, will you, kindly?" whispered the
Doctor to the Bibliomaniac.
"If you sleep until then you'll never wake," said the Bibliomaniac. "To
my mind the Idiot never comes to a point."
"You are a little too mysterious for me," observed Mr. Whitechoker. "I
know no more about Dreamaline now than I did when you began."
"Which is my case exactly," said the Idiot. "It is a vague, shadowy
something as yet. It is only a germ lost in my cerebral wrinkles, but I
hope by a persistent smoothing out of those wrinkles with what I might
call the flat-iron of thought, I may yet lay hold of the microbe, and
with it electrify the world. Once Dreamaline is discovered all other
discoveries become as nothing; all other inventions for the amelioration
of the condition of the civilized will be unnecessary, and even
Progressive Waffles will cease to fascinate."
"Perhaps," said the Bibliomaniac, "if you will give us a hint as to the
nature of your plan in general we may be able to help you in carrying it
out."
"The Doctor might," said the Idiot. "My genial friend who occasionally
imbibes might--even the Poet, with his taste for Welsh rarebits,
might--but from you and Mr. Pedagog and Mr. Whitechoker I fear I should
receive little assistance. Indeed, I am not sure but that Mr.
Whitechoker might disapprove of the plan altogether."
"Any plan which makes life happier and better is sure to meet with my
approval," said Mr. Whitechoker.
"With that encouragement, then," said the Idiot, "I will endeavor to lay
before you my crowning invention. Dreamaline, as its name may suggest,
should be a patent medicine, by taking which man should become oblivious
to care."
"What's the matter with champagne for that?" interrupted the Genial Old
Gentleman who occasionally imbibes.
"Champagne has some good points," said the Idiot. "But there are two
drawbacks--the effects and the price. Both of these drawbacks, so far
from making us oblivious to our cares, add to them. The superiority of
Dreamaline over champagne, or even over beer, which is comparatively
cheap, is that one dose of Dreamaline, costing one cent, will do more
for the patient than one case of champagne or one keg of beer; it is not
intoxicating or ruinous to the purse. Furthermore, it is more potent for
good, since, under its genial influences, man can do that to which he
aspires, or, what is perhaps better yet, merely imagine that he is doing
that to which he aspires, and so avoid the disappointment which I am
told always comes with ambition achieved.
"Take, for instance, the literary man. We know of many cases in which
the literary man has stimulated his imagination by means of drugs, and
while under the influence has penned the most marvellous tales. That man
sacrifices himself for the delectation of others. In order to write
something for the world to rave over, he takes a dose which makes him
rave, and which ultimately kills him. Dreamaline will make this
entirely unnecessary. Instead of the writers taking hasheesh, the reader
takes Dreamaline. Instead of one man having to smoke opium for millions,
the millions take Dreamaline for themselves as individuals. I would have
the scientists, then, the chemists, study the subject carefully, decide
what quality it is in hasheesh that makes a writer conceive of these
horrible situations, put this into a nostrum, and sell it to those who
like horrible situations, and let them dream their own stories."
"Very interesting," said the Bibliomaniac, "but all readers do not like
horrible situations. We are not _all_ morbid."
"For which we should be devoutly thankful," said the Idiot. "But your
point is not well taken. On each bottle of what I should call 'Literary
Dreamaline,' to distinguish it from 'Art Dreamaline,' 'Scientific
Dreamaline,' and so on, I should have printed explicit directions
showing consumers how the dose should be modified to meet the consumer's
taste. One man likes a De Maupassant story. Let him take his Dreamaline
straight, lie down and dream. He'd get his De Maupassant story with a
vengeance. Another likes the modern story in realism--a story in which a
prize might be offered to the reader who finds a situation, an incident
in the three hundred odd pages of the book he reads. This man could take
a spoonful of Dreamaline and dilute it to his taste. A drop of
Dreamaline, which taken raw would give a man a dream like Doctor Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde, put into a hogshead of pure water would enable the man who
took a spoonful of it before going to bed to fall asleep and walk
through a three-volume novel by Henry James. Thus every man could get
what he wanted at small expense. Dreamaline for readers sold at a
dollar a quart would give every consumer as big and varied a library as
he wished, and would be a great saving to the eyes. People would have
more time for other pleasures if by taking a dose of Dreamaline before
retiring they could get all their literature in their sleeping hours.
Then every bottle would pay for itself ten times over if on awakening
the next morning the consumer would write out the story he had dreamed
and publish it for the benefit of those who were afraid to take the
medicine."
"You wouldn't make much money out of it, though," said the Poet. "If one
bottle sufficed for a library you wouldn't find much of a demand."
"That could be got around in two ways," said the Idiot. "We could
copyright every bottle of Dreamaline and require the consumers to pay us
a royalty on every book inspired by it, or we could ourselves take what
I would call Financial Dreamaline, one dose of which would make a man
feel like a millionaire. Life is only feeling after all. If you feel
like a millionaire you are as happy as a millionaire--happier, in fact,
because in reality you do not have to wear your thumbs out cutting
coupons on the first of every month. Then I should have Art Dreamaline.
You could have it arranged so that by a certain dose you could have old
masters all over your house; by another dose you could get a collection
of modern French paintings, and by swallowing a whole bottle you could
dream that your walls were lined with mysteries that would drive the
Impressionists crazy with envy. In Scientific Dreamaline you would get
ideas for invention that would revolutionize the world."
"How about the poets and the humorists?" asked the Poet.