The Inventions of the Idiot, John Kendrick Bangs [tools of titans ebook txt] 📗

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