CHAPTER VIII.
THE MAN IN THE CELLAR.
The genial druggist was a changed man.
Without a smile he now listened when they talked of him for Congress.
He performed the duties of Mayor perfunctorily. The hours at theoffice palled on him. He collected the fees with a cold, studiedindifference. The Chicago papers were unread. Whether it was the"Cubs" or the "Tigers" made no impression on his preoccupation. Lifeseemed to have lost its zest. Even the drug store was conductedincidentally, as it were.
The attention of William K. Vanderhook was elsewhere. The episode ofthe preceding chapter had hardened his heart and fixed his purpose.
It was now Bill's turn to MEDITATE.
"There is,"--he would mutter to himself every little while--"there isin nature an antidote for every poison. Though undiscovered, it stillexists. There is, there must be, yes, there _shall_ be some force innature to oust any astral popinjay ever projected into space. If thereare astral poisons (q.e.d.), then there must be antidotes after theirown kind. There is, I know, a way to trap every manner of wild beast,every deadly serpent and hurtful insect; and so there is, if I can getonto it, some principle or process by which I can reduce this astralFakir back into his original elements. And s'elp me jimmykayjones,this Gay Gnani of Gingalee can and must and shall be swept off theface of the--no, he shall be eliminated from the atmosphere heinfests."
It will be remembered that Mr. Vanderhook was not only a skilledpharmacist and practical chemist, but he was likewise an electricianof great ability.
There came a day, a damp, cloudy day, when he left the drug storeearly and hurriedly. He went home as fast as the auto could carryhim. He avoided the parlor. He struck for the cellar. He approachedthe potato bins, empty now, as if to meet his requirements. Presentlyhe had them torn out, and there was a large space for whatever mightbe needed.
The next day came masons and carpenters and plumbers. Inside of twoweeks the druggist had a laboratory in his cellar of which no man hadthe key, to which no man had access save himself.
From this day forward every spare moment was spent in the seclusion ofthis underground apartment. The Mayor let slip his official mantle,and as far as possible leaned upon the city comptroller. He took onlythought enough to pocket the fees with a cold, sardonic smile. He gaveup his club, declined invitations to progressive euchre; the fallraces, and the dog show he passed by. The big ball game he even forgotto attend.
His life centered in the cellar.
This was pre-eminently satisfactory to Mrs. V. and her etherealshadow. Bill's absence furnished opportunity for unending discussionson the Unity of Vibration, which had polarized them as a unit.Absorbed as they were in the contemplation of themselves, they failedto cognize the exact nature of Mr. Vanderhook's occupation in thecellar.
They only dreamed on, happy in the present, careless of the past andhilarious in the hope of soon realizing a still closer relation--afterthey had satisfied the requirements of the law as made and provided inthe Statutes of Illinois.
So self-absorbed were they that they gave no attention to the comingsand goings of the master of the house. The man in the cellar waspractically forgotten. Now and then, however, they would bemomentarily diverted by subterranean reports and faint odors of gases.
"Well, he's got to get somewhere to make himself heard," laughed the"Lonnie Llama" one evening when Imogene shrieked at an unusually loudreport. The walls shook with the force of it, while the cruel coupleshook with laughter.
"He don't complain of being lonesome any more does he?" added thegentleman.
"Oh, no," giggled Imogene. "He says he is wrapped up in Science now."
"And so are we, my ownest; are not we also wrapped up in Science--theHigher Science?"--and the Gay Gnani encircled his Affinity with hisvery diaphanous arms.
The Lady laughed gaily, and then disengaging herself she daintilylifted her silken dinner gown and, recalling the last matinee inChicago, she trippingly danced, singing as only Imogene could sing:
"O, O, my Hindoo Honey, Honey I love you."
Such had come to be the atmosphere of the drawing room.
But what of him in the cellar? What of the husband discarded, and thefriend betrayed?
He was busy--tremendously BUSY. He did not even close Saturdays atone o'clock. He was busy every daylight hour he could steal. He wasbusy far into the hours when just men sleep, and bad ones go aburgling.
Over and again he might have been heard to say in terribly tensetones,--"He's no illusion. He's no spook. He's a fact,--a cold,scientific fact. He lives by natural law as much as I do. Thereforehe's controlled by natural laws. He's therefore susceptible tochemical changes by the proper application of those laws. If so, he'ssubject to these changes whenever and wherever scientific processesare brought to bear against him. Since an astral man isa--Something,--why, something can get at him. Something, somewhere innature's laboratory, must have the potency to seize him, to paralyzehim."
And Bill would continue his monologue,--"Though neither brickbat norbilliard cue is efficacious in the matter of astral substance, itdoesn't follow that the proper projectile may not be found andsuccessfully administered. Now," he would reason, "an astral body,like a physical one, must have certain natural, specific modes ofgrowth, development, rejuvenation, resistance, persistence,disintegration, and dissolution; and I,--ha, ha,--I shall find thissecret. Nature must and shall disclose its secret of the reduction ofthe astral to its original essence."
Then the Honorable William K. would laugh a high, weird laugh thatechoed in hollow cadences among the jars and bottles of hislaboratory.
Then, perchance, for the moment elate, he would whistle a few bars of"I'm a lookin' for dat niggah an' he mus' be foun'."
And the awful merriment of the Mayor was more suggestive than hisunpleasant language.
Over the great iatro-chemist, Paracelsus, the old German chemists, andover the discoveries and formulas of Basil Valentine, the druggist ofKankakee continually pored. Deep into the mysteries of chemicalphilosophy he delved. Not to his wife, but to Tyndall, Maxwell andDaniel he turned for society; not, however, until he had absorbed the"Genesis of the Elements," by Crooks, did he show the excitement andenthusiasm of the man who gets what he goes after.
There came a day, or rather an evening, when the discarded husbandrose up and called himself a "Cracker-Jack." He shook himself with theabandon of one who finds himself master of a situation.
For days after this Bill Vanderhook was singularly jocular. He waspolite to Imogene. He even indulged himself in a bit of joshing withthe Mystic.
* * * * *
"Good-bye, Mrs. V. S'long, Leff,"--said the Mayor one morning as heappeared equipped for traveling.
"Going east for stock,"--he said briefly, when languidly interrogatedby Imogene as to the whys and whences of this sudden trip. "You andLeff can run things a few days without me,"--he said satirically.
"I should remark,"--responded Imogene in her own pretty way.
There was a peculiar grin on Mr. Vanderhook's face as he put on hishat. He commended his wife to the care of the Mystic with theseportentous words,--"Enjoy yourself while you can, for none of us knowswhat may happen next."
In a fortnight he had returned, was again in the cellar busier thanever. Presently there came by express a fresh consignment for thelaboratory. A heavily wrapped and curiously crated package, not largerthan a small tub, which required several men to convey it from thewagon to the underground workshop.
And the guilty pair asked no questions. Chemical experiments, as such,had no interest for them.
"Bet you it's a music box,"--said Imogene, who had noted its arrivalfrom the parlor window.
"Or a picture machine,"--suggested Lonnie, without taking the troubleto remove his eyes from the face of the "lady-bird." "And do youknow," he continued listlessly, "that these ordinary humans are doingsome very clever work nowadays?"
Mr. Vanderhook vouchsafed no
explanation. Next day an extra lock wasput on his laboratory door.
Days rolled on, making up the weeks. The weeks expanded into months.The months rounded up a year, and yet there was no change in theVanderhook home. No change, merely an accentuation of the oldcondition. No change, merely a closer absorption of the lady and herLlama. Only an increased activity on the part of the man in thecellar.
Mrs. and Mr. V. seldom met, except at meals. From these their guestusually absented himself. Having neither the need nor the desire forfood, it wearied him to observe the processes involved. To see hisidol feeding grated upon his super-refined senses. This process ofreinforcing the fires of physical life is not attractive to astralvision. Even a lady looks rather like an animated hopper than anIntelligent Being.
Between meals, however, the Llama and the Lady-Bird lost no time.
Nor Bill.