the Junior Class at Polyp University. In every man of the seventy the
sage saw the logarithm of a possible La Place, of a Sturm, or of a
Newton. It was a delightful task for him to lead them through the
pleasant valleys of conic sections, and beside the still waters of the
integral calculus. Figuratively speaking, his problem was not a hard
one. He had only to manipulate, and eliminate, and to raise to a higher
power, and the triumphant result of examination day was assured.
But I was a disturbing element, a perplexing unknown quantity, which had
somehow crept into the work, and which seriously threatened to impair
the accuracy of his calculations. It was a touching sight to behold the
venerable mathematician as he pleaded with me not so utterly to
disregard precedent in the use of cotangents; or as he urged, with eyes
almost tearful, that ordinates were dangerous things to trifle with. All
in vain. More theorems went on to my cuff than into my head. Never did
chalk do so much work to so little purpose. And, therefore, it came that
Furnace Second was reduced to zero in Professor Surd's estimation. He
looked upon me with all the horror which an unalgebraic nature could
inspire. I have seen the Professor walk around an entire square rather
than meet the man who had no mathematics in his soul.
For Furnace Second were no invitations to Professor Surd's house.
Seventy of the class supped in delegations around the periphery of the
Professor's tea-table. The seventy-first knew nothing of the charms of
that perfect ellipse, with its twin bunches of fuchsias and geraniums
in gorgeous precision at the two foci.
This, unfortunately enough, was no trifling deprivation. Not that I
longed especially for segments of Mrs. Surd's justly celebrated lemon
pies; not that the spheroidal damsons of her excellent preserving had
any marked allurements; not even that I yearned to hear the Professor's
jocose table-talk about binomials, and chatty illustrations of abstruse
paradoxes. The explanation is far different. Professor Surd had a
daughter. Twenty years before, he made a proposition of marriage to the
present Mrs. S. He added a little Corollary to his proposition not long
after. The Corollary was a girl.
Abscissa Surd was as perfectly symmetrical as Giotto's circle, and as
pure, withal, as the mathematics her father taught. It was just when
spring was coming to extract the roots of frozen-up vegetation that I
fell in love with the Corollary. That she herself was not indifferent I
soon had reason to regard as a self-evident truth.
The sagacious reader will already recognize nearly all the elements
necessary to a well-ordered plot. We have introduced a heroine, inferred
a hero, and constructed a hostile parent after the most approved model.
A movement for the story, a _Deus ex machina_, is alone lacking. With
considerable satisfaction I can promise a perfect novelty in this line,
a _Deus ex machina_ never before offered to the public.
It would be discounting ordinary intelligence to say that I sought with
unwearying assiduity to figure my way into the stern father's good-will;
that never did dullard apply himself to mathematics more patiently than
I; that never did faithfulness achieve such meagre reward. Then I
engaged a private tutor. His instructions met with no better success.
My tutor's name was Jean Marie Rivarol. He was a unique Alsatian--though
Gallic in name, thoroughly Teuton in nature; by birth a Frenchman, by
education a German. His age was thirty; his profession, omniscience; the
wolf at his door, poverty; the skeleton in his closet, a consuming but
unrequited passion. The most recondite principles of practical science
were his toys; the deepest intricacies of abstract science his
diversions. Problems which were foreordained mysteries to me were to him
as clear as Tahoe water. Perhaps this very fact will explain our lack of
success in the relation of tutor and pupil; perhaps the failure is alone
due to my own unmitigated stupidity. Rivarol had hung about the skirts
of the University for several years; supplying his few wants by writing
for scientific journals, or by giving assistance to students who, like
myself, were characterized by a plethora of purse and a paucity of
ideas; cooking, studying and sleeping in his attic lodgings; and
prosecuting queer experiments all by himself.
We were not long discovering that even this eccentric genius could not
transplant brains into my deficient skull. I gave over the struggle in
despair. An unhappy year dragged its slow length around. A gloomy year
it was, brightened only by occasional interviews with Abscissa, the
Abbie of my thoughts and dreams.
Commencement day was coming on apace. I was soon to go forth, with the
rest of my class, to astonish and delight a waiting world. The Professor
seemed to avoid me more than ever. Nothing but the conventionalities, I
think kept him from shaping his treatment of me on the basis of
unconcealed disgust.
At last, in the very recklessness of despair, I resolved to see him,
plead with him, threaten him if need be, and risk all my fortunes on one
desperate chance. I wrote him a somewhat defiant letter, stating my
aspirations, and, as I flattered myself, shrewdly giving him a week to
get over the first shock of horrified surprise. Then I was to call and
learn my fate.
During the week of suspense I nearly worried myself into a fever. It was
first crazy hope, and then saner despair. On Friday evening, when I
presented myself at the Professor's door, I was such a haggard, sleepy,
dragged-out spectre, that even Miss Jocasta, the harsh-favored maiden
sister of the Surd's, admitted me with commiserate regard, and suggested
pennyroyal tea.
Professor Surd was at a faculty meeting. Would I wait?
Yes, till all was blue, if need be. Miss Abbie?
Abscissa had gone to Wheelborough to visit a school-friend. The aged
maiden hoped I would make myself comfortable, and departed to the
unknown haunts which knew Jocasta's daily walk.
Comfortable! But I settled myself in a great uneasy chair and waited,
with the contradictory spirit common to such junctures, dreading every
step lest it should herald the man whom, of all men, I wished to see.
I had been there at least an hour, and was growing right drowsy.
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.--Shakespeare. 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 labelled _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 Comte, 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 partially 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 shall 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. Grimier'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."
"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 centre? 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 centre of the earth. There it would stop,
were it not for acquired momentum. Beyond the centre its journey was
relatively upward, toward the opposite surface of the globe. So, losing
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 centre 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 centre 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 Geld?_"
"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."
"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?"
I began to get an inkling of his meaning, and told him so.