X
"The progress of invention in this country has been very remarkable,"said Mr. Pedagog, as he turned his attention from a scientific weekly hehad been reading to a towering pile of buckwheat cakes that Mary had justbrought in. "An Englishman has just discovered a means by which a ship indistress at sea can write for help on the clouds."
"Extraordinary!" said Mr. Whitechoker.
"It might be more so," observed the Idiot, coaxing the platterful ofcakes out of the School-Master's reach by a dexterous movement of hishand. "And it will be more so some day. The time is coming when themoon itself will be used by some enterprising American to advertise hissoap business. I haven't any doubt that the next fifty years will developa stereopticon by means of which a picture of a certain brand of cigarmay be projected through space until it seems to be held between theteeth of the man in the moon, with a printed legend below it statingthat this is _Tooforfivers Best, Rolled from Hand-made Tobacco, Warrantednot to Crock or Fade, and for sale by All Tobacconists at Eighteen for aDime_."
"THE MOON ITSELF WILL BE USED"]
"You would call that an advance in invention, eh?" asked theSchool-Master.
"Why not?" queried the Idiot.
"Do you consider the invention which would enable man to debase nature tothe level of an advertising medium an advance?"
"I should not consider the use of the moon for the dissemination of goodnews a debasement. If the cigars were good--and I have no doubt that someone will yet invent a cheap cigar that is good--it would benefit thehuman race to be acquainted with that fact. I think sometimes that theadvertisements in the newspapers and the periodicals of the day are ofmore value to the public than the reading-matter, so-called, that standsnext to them. I don't see why you should sneer at advertising. I shouldnever have known you, for instance, Mr. Pedagog, had it not been for Mrs.Pedagog's advertisement offering board and lodging to single gentlemenfor a consideration. Nor would you have met Mrs. Smithers, now yourestimable wife, yourself, had it not been for that advertisement. Why,then, do you sneer at the ladder upon which you have in a sense climbedto your present happiness? You are ungrateful."
"How you do ramify!" said Mr. Pedagog. "I believe there is no subject inthe world which you cannot connect in some way or another with everyother subject in the world. A discussion of the merits of Shakespeare'ssonnets could be turned by your dexterous tongue in five minutes into aquarrel over the comparative merits of cider and cod-liver oil asbeverages, with you, the chances are, the advocate of cod-liver oil asa steady drink."
"Well, I must say," said the Idiot, with a smile, "it has been myexperience that cod-liver oil is steadier than cider. The cod-liveroils I have had the pleasure of absorbing have been evenly vile, whilethe ciders that I have drank have been of a variety of goodness, badness,and indifferentness which has brought me to the point where I never touchit. But to return to inventions, since you desire to limit our discussionto a single subject, I think it is about the most interesting field ofspeculation imaginable."
"There you are right," said Mr. Pedagog, approvingly. "There isabsolutely no limit to the possibilities involved. It is almost withinthe range of possibilities that some man may yet invent a buckwheat cakethat will satisfy your abnormal craving for that delicacy, which thepresent total output of this table seems unable to do."
Here Mr. Pedagog turned to his wife, and added: "My dear, will yourequest the cook hereafter to prepare individual cakes for us? The Idiothas so far monopolized all that have as yet appeared."
"It appears to me," said the Idiot at this point, "that _you_ are theramifier, Mr. Pedagog. Nevertheless, ramify as much as you please. I canfollow you--at a safe distance, of course--in the discussion of anything,from Edison to flapjacks. I think your suggestion regarding individualcakes is a good one. We might all have separate griddles, upon whichGladys, the cook, can prepare them, and on these griddles might be castin bold relief the crest of each member of this household, so that everyman's cake should, by an easy process in the making, come off the fireindelibly engraved with the evidence of its destiny. Mr. Pedagog's iron,for instance, might have upon it a school-book rampant, or a large headin the same condition. Mr. Whitechoker's cake-mark might be a pulpitrampant, based upon a vestryman dormant. The Doctor might have a lozengyshield with a suitable tincture, while my genial friend who occasionallyimbibes could have a barry shield surmounted by a small effigy ofGambrinus."
"You appear to know something of heraldry," said the poet, with a look ofsurprise.
"I know something of everything," said the Idiot, complacently.
"It's a pity you don't know everything about something," sneered theDoctor.
"I would suggest," said the School-Master, dryly, "that a little rampantjackass would make a good crest for your cakes."
"That's a very good idea," said the Idiot. "I do not know but that ajackass rampant would be about as comprehensive of my virtues as anythingI might select. The jackass is a combination of all the best qualities.He is determined. He minds his own business. He doesn't indulge inflippant conversation. He is useful. Has no vices, never pretends to beanything but a jackass, and most respectfully declines to be ridden byTom, Dick, and Harry. I accept the suggestion of Mr. Pedagog with thanks.But we are still ramifying. Let us get back to inventions. Now I fullybelieve that the time is coming when some inventive genius will devise amethod whereby intellect can be given to those who haven't any. I believethat the time is coming when the secrets of the universe will be yieldedup to man by nature."
"DECLINES TO BE RIDDEN"]
"And then?" queried Mr. Brief.
"Then some man will try to improve on the secrets of the universe. Hewill try to invent an apparatus by means of which the rotation of theworld may be made faster or slower, according to his will. If he has butone day, for instance, in which to do a stated piece of work, and heneeds two, he will put on some patent brake and slow the world up untilthe distance travelled in one hour shall be reduced one-half, so that onehour under the old system will be equivalent to two; or if he isanticipating some joy, some diversion in the future, the same smartperson will find a way to increase the speed of the earth so that thehours will be like minutes. Then he'll begin fooling with gravitation,and he will discover a new-fashioned lodestone, which can be carried inone's hat to counter-act the influence of the centre of gravity when onefalls out of a window or off a precipice, the result of which will bethat the person who falls off one of these high places will drop downslowly, and not with the rapidity which at the present day is responsiblefor the dreadful outcome of accidents of that sort. Then, finally--"
"You pretend to be able to penetrate to the finality, do you?" asked theClergyman.
"Why not? It is as easy to imagine the finality as it is to go half-waythere," returned the Idiot. "Finally he will tackle some elementaryprinciple of nature, and he'll blow the world to smithereens."
There was silence at the table. This at least seemed to be a tenabletheory. That man should have the temerity to take liberties withelementary principles was quite within reason, man being an animal ofrare conceit, and that the result would bring about destruction was notat all at variance with probability.
"I believe it's happened once or twice already," said the Idiot.
"Do you really?" asked Mr. Pedagog, with a show of interest. "Upon whatdo you base this belief?"
"Well, take Africa," said the Idiot. "Take North America. What do wefind? We find in the sands of the Sahara a great statue, which we callthe Sphinx, and about which we know nothing, except that it is there andthat it keeps its mouth shut. We find marvellous creations in engineeringthat to-day surpass anything that we can do. The Sphinx, when discovered,was covered by sand. Now I believe that at one time there were peoplemuch further advanced in science than ourselves, who made these wonderfulthings, who knew how to do things that we don't even dream of doing, andI believe that they, like this creature I have predicted, got foolingwith the centre of gravity, and that the world
slipped its moorings for aperiod of time, during which time it tumbled topsy-turvey into space, andthat banks and banks of sand and water and ice thrown out of positionsimply swept on and over the whole surface of the globe continuouslyuntil the earth got into the grip of the rest of the universe once moreand started along in a new orbit. We know that where we are high and dryto-day the ocean must once have rolled. We know that where the world isnow all sunshine and flowers great glaciers stood. What caused all thischange? Nothing else, in my judgment, than the monkeying of man with theforces of nature. The poles changed, and it wouldn't surprise me a bitthat, if the north pole were ever found and could be thawed out, weshould find embedded in that great sea of ice evidences of a formercivilization, just as in the Saharan waste evidences of the same thinghave been found. I know of a place out West that is literally strewn withoyster-shells, and yet no man living has the slightest idea how they camethere. It may have been the Massachusetts Bay of a pre-historic time, forall we know. It may have been an antediluvian Coney Island, for all theworld knows. Who shall say that this little upset of mine found here anoyster-bed, shook all the oysters out of their bed into space, and lefttheir clothes high and dry in a locality which, but for those garments,would seem never to have known the oyster in his prime? Off inWestchester County, on the top of a high hill, lies a rock, and in theuppermost portion of that rock is a so-called pot-hole, made by nothingelse than the dropping of water of a brook and the swirling of pebblestherein. It is now beyond the reach of anything in the shape of watersave that which falls from the heavens. It is certain that this pot-holewas never made by a boy with a watering-pot, by a hired man with a hose,by a workman with a drill, or by any rain-storm that ever fell inWestchester County. There must at some time or another have been astream there; and as streams do not flow uphill and bore pot-holes onmountain-tops, there must have been a valley there. Some great cataclysmtook place. For that cataclysm nature must be held responsible mainly.But what prompted nature to raise hob with Westchester County millions ofyears ago, and to let it sleep like Rip Van Winkle ever since? Natureisn't a freak. She is depicted as a woman, but in spite of that she isnot whimsical. She does not act upon impulses. There must have been somecause for her behavior in turning valleys into hills, in transforminghuge cities into wastes of sand, and oyster-beds into shell quarries; andit is my belief that man was the contributing cause. He tapped the earthfor natural gas; he bored in and he bored out, and he bored nature todeath, and then nature rose up and smote him and his cities and hisoyster-beds, and she'll do it again unless we go slow."
"There is a great deal in what you say," said Mr. Whitechoker.
"Very true," said Mrs. Pedagog. "But I wish he'd stop saying it. The lastthree dozen cakes have got cold as ice while he was talking, and I can'tafford such reckless waste."
"Nor we, Mrs. Pedagog," said the Idiot, with a pleasant smile; "for, as Iwas saying to the Bibliomaniac this morning, your buckwheat cakes are, tomy mind, the very highest development of our modern civilization, and tohave even one of them wasted seems to me to be a crime against Natureherself, for which a second, third, or fourth shaking up of this earthwould be an inadequate punishment."
This remark so pleased Mrs. Pedagog that she ordered the cook to send upa fresh lot of cakes; and the guests, after eating them, adjourned totheir various duties with light hearts, and digestions occupied with workof great importance.