At length Professor Surd came in. He sat down in the dusk opposite me,
and I thought his eyes glinted with malignant pleasure as he said,
abruptly:
“So, young man, you think you are a fit husband for my girl?”
I stammered some inanity about making up in affection what I lacked
in merit, about my expectations, family, and the like. He quickly
interrupted me.
“You misapprehend me, sir. Your nature is destitute of those
mathematical perceptions and acquirements which are the only sure
foundations of character. You have no mathematics in you. You are fit
for treason, stratagems, and spoils--Shakspere. Your narrow intellect
cannot understand and appreciate a generous mind. There is all the
difference between you and a Surd, if I may say it, which intervenes
between an infinitesimal and an infinite. Why, I will even venture to
say that you do not comprehend the Problem of the Couriers!”
I admitted that the Problem of the Couriers should be classed rather
without my list of accomplishments than within it. I regretted this
fault very deeply, and suggested amendment. I faintly hoped that my
fortune would be such--
“Money!” he impatiently exclaimed. “Do you seek to bribe a Roman
senator with a penny whistle? Why, boy, do you parade your paltry
wealth, which, expressed in mills, will not cover ten decimal places,
before the eyes of a man who measures the planets in their orbits, and
close crowds infinity itself?”
I hastily disclaimed any intention of obtruding my foolish dollars, and
he went on:
“Your letter surprised me not a little. I thought _you_ would be the
last person in the world to presume to an alliance here. But having
a regard for you personally,”--and again I saw malice twinkle in his
small eyes,--“and still more regard for Abscissa’s happiness, I have
decided that you shall have her--upon conditions. Upon conditions,” he
repeated, with a half-smothered sneer.
“What are they?” cried I, eagerly enough. “Only name them.”
“Well, sir,” he continued, and the deliberation of his speech seemed
the very refinement of cruelty, “you have only to prove yourself worthy
an alliance with a mathematical family. You have only to accomplish a
task which I shall presently give you. Your eyes ask me what it is. I
will tell you. Distinguish yourself in that noble branch of abstract
science in which, you cannot but acknowledge, you are at present sadly
deficient. I will place Abscissa’s hand in yours whenever you shall
come before me and square the circle to my satisfaction. No, that is
too easy a condition. I should cheat myself. Say perpetual motion.
How do you like that? Do you think it lies within the range of your
mental capabilities? You don’t smile. Perhaps your talents don’t run
in the way of perpetual motion. Several people have found that theirs
didn’t. I’ll give you another chance. We were speaking of the Problem
of the Couriers, and I think you expressed a desire to know more of
that ingenious question. You shall have the opportunity. Sit down
some day when you have nothing else to do and discover the principle
of infinite speed. I mean the law of motion which shall accomplish an
infinitely great distance in an infinitely short time. You may mix in a
little practical mechanics, if you choose. Invent some method of taking
the tardy courier over his road at the rate of sixty miles a minute.
Demonstrate me this discovery (when you have made it!) mathematically,
and approximate it practically, and Abscissa is yours. Until you can, I
will thank you to trouble neither myself nor her.”
I could stand his mocking no longer. I stumbled mechanically out of
the room and out of the house. I even forgot my hat and gloves. For
an hour I walked in the moonlight. Gradually I succeeded to a more
hopeful frame of mind. This was due to my ignorance of mathematics. Had
I understood the real meaning of what he asked, I should have been
utterly despondent.
Perhaps this problem of sixty miles a minute was not so impossible,
after all. At any rate, I could attempt, though I might not succeed.
And Rivarol came to my mind. I would ask him. I would enlist his
knowledge to accompany my own devoted perseverance. I sought his
lodgings at once.
The man of science lived in the fourth story back. I had never been
in his room before. When I entered, he was in the act of filling a
beer-mug from a carboy labeled _aqua fortis_.
“Seat you,” he said. “No, not in that chair. That is my
Petty-Cash-Adjuster.”
But he was a second too late. I had carelessly thrown myself into
a chair of seductive appearance. To my utter amazement, it reached
out two skeleton arms, and clutched me with a grasp against which I
struggled in vain. Then a skull stretched itself over my shoulder and
grinned with ghastly familiarity close to my face.
Rivarol came to my aid with many apologies. He touched a spring
somewhere, and the Petty-Cash-Adjuster relaxed its horrid hold. I
placed myself gingerly in a plain cane-bottomed rocking-chair, which
Rivarol assured me was a safe location.
“That seat,” he said, “is an arrangement upon which I much felicitate
myself. I made it at Heidelberg. It has saved me a vast deal of
small annoyance. I consign to its embraces the friends who bore, and
the visitors who exasperate, me. But it is never so useful as when
terrifying some tradesman with an insignificant account. Hence the
pet name which I have facetiously given it. They are invariably too
glad to purchase release at the price of a bill receipted. Do you well
apprehend the idea?”
While the Alsatian diluted his glass of _aqua fortis_, shook into it an
infusion of bitters, and tossed off the bumper with apparent relish, I
had time to look around the strange apartment.
The four corners of the room were occupied respectively by a
turning-lathe, a Rhumkorff coil, a small steam-engine, and an orrery
in stately motion. Tables, shelves, chairs, and floor supported an odd
aggregation of tools, retorts, chemicals, gas-receivers, philosophical
instruments, boots, flasks, paper-collar boxes, books diminutive, and
books of preposterous size. There were plaster busts of Aristotle,
Archimedes, and Compte, while a great drowsy owl was blinking away,
perched on the benign brow of Martin Farquhar Tupper. “He always roosts
there when he proposes to slumber,” explained my tutor. “You are a bird
of no ordinary mind. _Schlafen Sie wohl._”
Through a closet door, half open, I could see a human-like form covered
with a sheet. Rivarol caught my glance.
“That,” said he, “will be my masterpiece. It is a microcosm, an
android, as yet only partly complete. And why not? Albertus Magnus
constructed an image perfect to talk metaphysics and confute the
schools. So did Sylvester II; so did Robertus Greathead. Roger Bacon
made a brazen head that held discourses. But the first named of these
came to destruction. Thomas Aquinas got wrathful at some of its
syllogisms and smashed its head. The idea is reasonable enough. Mental
action will yet be reduced to laws as definite as those which govern
the physical. Why should not I accomplish a manikin which will preach
as original discourses as the Rev. Dr. Allchin, or talk poetry as
mechanically as Paul Anapest? My android can already work problems in
vulgar fractions and compose sonnets. I hope to teach it the Positive
philosophy.”
Out of the bewildering confusion of his effects Rivarol produced two
pipes, and filled them. He handed one to me.
“And here,” he said, “I live and am tolerably comfortable. When my coat
wears out at the elbows, I seek the tailor and am measured for another.
When I am hungry, I promenade myself to the butcher’s and bring home
a pound or so of steak, which I cook very nicely in three seconds by
this oxy-hydrogen flame. Thirsty, perhaps, I send for a carboy of _aqua
fortis_. But I have it charged, all charged. My spirit is above any
small pecuniary transaction. I loathe your dirty greenbacks and never
handle what they call scrip.”
“But are you never pestered with bills?” I asked. “Don’t the creditors
worry your life out?”
“Creditors!” gasped Rivarol. “I have learned no such word in your
very admirable language. He who will allow his soul to be vexed by
creditors is a relic of an imperfect civilization. Of what use is
science if it cannot avail a man who has accounts current? Listen. The
moment you or any one else enters the outside door this little electric
bell sounds me warning. Every successive step on Mrs. Grimler’s
staircase is a spy and informer vigilant for my benefit. The first
step is trod upon. That trusty first step immediately telegraphs your
weight. Nothing could be simpler. It is exactly like any platform
scale. The weight is registered up here upon this dial. The second step
records the size of my visitor’s feet. The third his height, the fourth
his complexion, and so on. By the time he reaches the top of the first
flight I have a pretty accurate description of him right here at my
elbow, and quite a margin of time for deliberation and action. Do you
follow me? It is plain enough. Only the A B C of my science.”
[Illustration: EDWARD P. MITCHELL
From a photograph taken in 1872, the year in which he wrote “The
Tachypomp.” Mr. Mitchell is now the editor of the New York “Sun.”]
“I see all that,” I said, “but I don’t see how it helps you any. The
knowledge that a creditor is coming won’t pay his bill. You can’t
escape unless you jump out of the window.”
Rivarol laughed softly. “I will tell you. You shall see what becomes
of any poor devil who goes to demand money of me--of a man of science.
Ha! ha! It pleases me. I was seven weeks perfecting my Dun-Suppressor.
Did you know,” he whispered exultingly--“did you know that there is
a hole through the earth’s center? Physicists have long suspected
it; I was the first to find it. You have read how Rhuyghens, the
Dutch navigator, discovered in Kerguellen’s Land an abysmal pit which
fourteen hundred fathoms of plumb-line failed to sound. Herr Tom,
that hole has no bottom! It runs from one surface of the earth to
the antipodal surface. It is diametric. But where is the antipodal
spot? You stand upon it. I learned this by the merest chance. I
was deep-digging in Mrs. Grimler’s cellar to bury a poor cat I had
sacrificed in a galvanic experiment, when the earth under my spade
crumbled, caved in, and, wonder-stricken, I stood upon the brink of
a yawning shaft. I dropped a coal-hod in. It went down, down, down,
bounding and rebounding. In two hours and a quarter that coal-hod came
up again. I caught it, and restored it to the angry Grimler. Just think
a minute. The coal-hod went down faster and faster, till it reached
the center of the earth. There it would stop were it not for acquired
momentum. Beyond the center its journey was relatively upward, toward
the opposite surface of the globe. So, losing the velocity, it went
slower and slower till it reached that surface. Here it came to rest
for a second, and then fell back again, eight thousand odd miles,
into my hands. Had I not interfered with it, it would have repeated
its journey time after time, each trip of shorter extent, like the
diminishing oscillations of a pendulum, till it finally came to eternal
rest at the center of the sphere. I am not slow to give a practical
application to any such grand discovery. My Dun-Suppressor was born of
it. A trap just outside my chamber door, a spring in here, a creditor
on the trap--need I say more?”
“But isn’t it a trifle inhuman,” I mildly suggested, “plunging an
unhappy being into a perpetual journey to and from Kerguellen’s Land
without a moment’s warning?”
“I give them a chance. When they come up the first time I wait at the
mouth of the shaft with a rope in hand. If they are reasonable and will
come to terms, I fling them the line. If they perish, ’tis their own
fault. Only,” he added, with a melancholy smile, “the center is getting
so plugged up with creditors that I am afraid there soon will be no
choice whatever for ’em.”
By this time I had conceived a high opinion of my tutor’s ability. If
anybody could send me waltzing through space at an infinite speed,
Rivarol could do it. I filled my pipe and told him the story. He heard
with grave and patient attention. Then for full half an hour he whiffed
away in silence. Finally he spoke.
“The ancient cipher has overreached himself. He has given you a choice
of two problems, both of which he deems insoluble. Neither of them is
insoluble. The only gleam of intelligence old Cotangent showed was when
he said that squaring the circle was too easy. He was right. It would
have given you your _Liebchen_ in five minutes. I squared the circle
before I discarded pantalets. I will show you the work; but it would
be a digression, and you are in no mood for digressions. Our first
chance, therefore, lies in perpetual motion. Now, my good friend, I
will frankly tell you that, although I have compassed this interesting
problem, I do not choose to use it in your behalf. I, too, Herr Tom,
have a heart. The loveliest of her sex frowns upon me. Her somewhat
mature charms are not for Jean-Marie Rivarol. She has cruelly said that
her years demand of me filial rather than connubial regard. Is love a
matter of years or of eternity? This question did I put to the cold,
yet lovely, Jocasta.”
“Jocasta Surd!” I remarked in surprise, “Abscissa’s aunt!”
“The same,” he said sadly. “I will not attempt to conceal that upon the
maiden Jocasta my maiden heart has been bestowed. Give me your hand, my
nephew, in affliction as in affection!”
Rivarol dashed away a not discreditable tear, and resumed:
“My only hope lies in this discovery of perpetual motion. It will give
me the fame, the wealth. Can Jocasta refuse these? If she can, there is
only the trap-door and--Kerguellen’s Land!”
I bashfully asked to see the perpetual-motion machine. My uncle in
affliction shook his head.
“At another time,” he said. “Suffice it at present to say that it is
something upon the principle of a woman’s tongue. But you see now why
we must turn in your case to the alternative condition, infinite speed.
There are several ways in which this may be accomplished theoretically.
By the lever, for instance. Imagine a lever with a very long and a
very short arm. Apply power to the shorter arm which will move it with
great velocity. The end of the long arm will move much faster. Now
keep shortening the short arm and lengthening the long one, and as you
approach infinity in their difference of length, you approach infinity
in the speed of the long arm. It would be difficult to demonstrate this
practically to the professor. We must seek another solution. Jean-Marie
will meditate. Come to me in a fortnight. Good night. But stop! Have
you the money--_das Gelt_?”
“Much more than I need.”
“Good! Let us strike hands. Gold and knowledge, science and love, what
may not such a partnership achieve? We go to conquer thee, Abscissa.
_Vorwärts!_”
When at the end of a fortnight I sought Rivarol’s chamber, I
passed with some little trepidation over the terminus of the air
line to Kerguellen’s Land, and evaded the extended arms of the
Petty-Cash-Adjuster. Rivarol drew a mug of ale for me, and filled
himself a retort of his own peculiar beverage.
“Come,” he said at length, “let us drink success to the Tachypomp.”
“The Tachypomp?”
“Yes. Why not? _Tachu_, quickly, and _pempo_, _pepompa_, to send. May
it send you quickly to your wedding-day! Abscissa is yours. It is done.
When shall we start for the prairies?”
“Where is it?” I asked, looking in vain around the room for any
contrivance which might seem calculated to advance matrimonial
prospects.
“It is here,” and he gave his forehead a significant tap. Then he held
forth didactically.
“There is force enough in existence to yield us a speed of sixty miles
a minute or even more. All we need is the knowledge how to combine
and apply it. The wise man will not attempt to make some great force
yield some great speed. He will keep adding the little force to the
little force, making each little force yield its little speed, until
an aggregate of little forces shall be a great force, yielding an
aggregate of little speeds, a great speed. The difficulty is not in
aggregating the forces; it lies in the corresponding aggregation of
the speeds. One musket-ball will go, say, a mile. It is not hard
to increase the force of muskets to a thousand, yet the thousand
musket-balls will go no farther and no faster than the one. You see,
then, where our trouble lies. We cannot readily add speed to speed,
as we add force to force. My discovery is simply the utilization of a
principle which extorts an increment of speed from each increment of
power. But this is the metaphysics of physics. Let us be practical or
nothing.
“When you have walked forward on a moving train from the rear car
toward the engine, did you ever think what you were really doing?”
“Why, yes, I have generally been going to the smoking-car to have a
cigar.”
[Illustration: Drawn by Reginald Birch
“THAT SHE HERSELF WAS NOT INDIFFERENT I SOON HAD REASON TO REGARD AS A
SELF-EVIDENT TRUTH”]
“Tut! tut! not that! I mean did it ever occur to you on such an
occasion that absolutely you were moving faster than the train? The
train passes the telegraph-poles at the rate of thirty miles an hour,
say. You walk toward the smoking-car at the rate of four miles an hour.
Then _you_ pass the telegraph-poles at the rate of thirty-four miles.
Your absolute speed is the speed of the engine, plus the speed of your
own locomotion. Do you follow me?”