The Inventions of the Idiot Read online

  II

  A Suggestion for the Cable-cars

  "Heigh-ho!" sighed the Idiot, rubbing his eyes sleepily. "This is aweary world."

  "What? This from you?" smiled the Poet. "I never expected to hear thatplaint from a man of your cheerful disposition."

  "Humph!" said the Idiot, with difficulty repressing a yawn. "Humph! andI may add, likewise, tut! What do you take me for--an insulatedsun-beam? I can't help it if shadows camp across my horizonoccasionally. I wouldn't give a cent for the man who never had hismoments of misery. It takes night to enable us to appreciate daytime.Misery is a foil necessary to the full appreciation of joy. I'm glad Iam sort of down in the mouth to-day. I'll be all right to-morrow, andI'll enjoy to-morrow all the more for to-day's megrim. But for thepresent, I repeat, this is a weary world."

  "Oh, I don't think so," observed the School-master. "The world doesn'tseem to me to betray any signs of weariness. It got to work at the usualhour this morning, and, as far as I can judge, has been revolving at theusual rate of speed ever since."

  "The Idiot's mistake is a common one," put in the Doctor. "I find itfrequently in my practice."

  "That's a confession," retorted the Idiot. "Do you find out thesemistakes in your practice before or after the death of the patient?"

  "That mistake," continued the Doctor, paying apparently little heed tothe Idiot's remark--"that mistake lies in the Idiot's assumption thathe is himself the world. He regards himself as the earth, as all oflife, and, because he happens to be weary, the world is a weary one."

  "It isn't a fatal disease, is it?" queried the Idiot, anxiously. "I amnot likely to become so impressed with that idea, for instance, that Ishall have to be put in a padded cell and manacled so that I may notturn perpetual handsprings under the hallucination that, being theworld, it is my duty to revolve?"

  "No," replied the Doctor, with a laugh. "No, indeed. That is not at alllikely to happen, but I think it would be a good idea if you were tocarry the hallucination out far enough to put a cake of ice on yourhead, assuming that to be the north pole, and cool off that brain ofyours."

  "That is a good idea," returned the Idiot; "and if Mary will bring methe ice that was used to cool the coffee this morning, I shall bepleased to try the experiment. Meanwhile, this is a weary world."

  "Then why under the canopy don't you leave it and go to some otherworld?" snapped Mr. Pedagog. "You are under no obligation to remainhere. With a river on either side of the city, and a New York JuggernautCompany, Unlimited, running trolley-cars up and down two of our moreprominent highways, suicide is within the reach of all. Of course, weshould be sorry to lose you, in a way, but I have known men to recoverfrom even greater afflictions than that."

  "Thank you for the suggestion," replied the Idiot, transferring fourlarge, porous buckwheat-cakes to his plate. "Thank you very much, but Ihave a pleasanter and more lingering method of suicide right here. Deathby buckwheat-cakes is like being pierced by a Toledo blade. You do notrealize the terrors of your situation until you cease to be susceptibleto them. Furthermore, I do not believe in suicide. It is, in myjudgment, the worst crime a man can commit, and I cannot but admire theremarkable discernment evinced by the Fates in making of it its owninevitable capital punishment. A man may commit murder and escape death,but in the commission of suicide he is sure of execution. Just as Virtueis its own reward, so is Suicide its own amercement."

  "Been reading the dictionary again?" asked the Poet.

  "No, not exactly," said the Idiot, with a smile, "but--it's a kind ofjoke on me, I suppose--I have just been stuck, to use a polite term, ona book called Roget's _Thesaurus_, and, if I want to get hold of a newword that will increase my seeming importance to the community, I turnto it. That's where I got 'amercement.' I don't hold that its use inthis especial case is beyond cavil--that's another Thesaurian term--butI don't suppose any one here would notice that fact. It goes here, and Ishall not use it elsewhere."

  "I am interested to know how _you_ ever came to be the owner of a_Thesaurus_," said the School-master, with a grim smile at the idea ofthe Idiot having such a book in his possession. "Except on the score ofaffinities. You are both very wordy."

  "Meaning pleonastic, I presume," retorted the Idiot.

  "I beg your pardon?" said the School-master.

  "Never mind," said the Idiot. "I won't press the analogy, but I will saythat those who are themselves periphrastic should avoid criticisingothers for being ambaginous."

  "I think you mean ambiguous," said the School-master, elevating hiseyebrows in triumph.

  "I thought you'd think that," retorted the Idiot. "That's why I used theword 'ambaginous.' I'll lend you my dictionary to freshen up yourphraseology. Meanwhile, I'll tell you how I happened to get a_Thesaurus_. I thought it was an animal, and when I saw that a New Yorkbookseller had a lot of them marked down from two dollars to one, I sentand got one. I thought it was strange for a bookseller to be sellingrare animals, but that was his business, not mine; and as I was anxiousto see what kind of a creature a _Thesaurus_ was, I invested. When Ifound out it was a book and not a tame relic of the antediluvian animalkingdom, I thought I wouldn't say anything about it, but you people hereare so inquisitive you've learned my secret."

  "And wasn't it an animal?" asked Mrs. Smithers-Pedagog.

  "My dear--my _dear_!" ejaculated Mr. Pedagog. "Pray--ah--I beg of you,do not enter into this discussion."

  "No, Mrs. Pedagog," observed the Idiot, "it was not. It was nothing morethan a book, which, when once you have read it, you would not bewithout, since it gives your vocabulary a twist which makes you proofagainst ninety-nine out of every one hundred conversationalists in theworld, no matter how weak your cause."

  "I am beginning to understand the causes of your weariness," observedMr. Pedagog, acridly. "You have been memorizing syllables. Really, Ishould think you were in danger of phonetic prostration."

  "Not a bit of it," said the Idiot. "Those words are stimulating, notdepressing. I begin to feel better already, now that I have spoken them.I am not half so weary as I was, but for my weariness I had good cause.I suffered all night from a most frightful nightmare. It utterlydestroyed my rest."

  "Welsh-rarebit?" queried the Genial Old Gentleman who occasionallyimbibed, with a tone of reproach. "If so, why was I not with you?"

  "That question should be its own answer," replied the Idiot. "A man whowill eat a Welsh-rarebit alone is not only a person of a sullendisposition, but of reckless mould as well. I would no sooner think ofbraving a Welsh-rarebit unaccompanied than I would think of trying toswim across the British Channel without a lifesaving boat following inmy wake."

  "I question if so light a body as you could have a wake!" said Mr.Pedagog, coldly.

  "I am sorry, but I can't agree with you, Mr. Pedagog," said theBibliomaniac. "A tugboat, most insignificant of crafts, roils up thesurface of the sea more than an ocean steamer does. Fuss goes withfeathers more than with large bodies."

  "Well, they're neither of 'em in it with a cake of soap for real,bona-fide suds," said the Idiot, complacently, as he helped himself tohis thirteenth buckwheat-cake. "However, wakes have nothing to do withthe case. I had a most frightful dream, and it was not due toWelsh-rarebits, but to my fatal weakness, which, not having my_Thesaurus_ at hand, I must identify by the commonplace term ofcourtesy. You may not have noticed it, but courtesy is my strong point."

  "We haven't observed the fact," said Mr. Pedagog; "but what of it? Haveyou been courteous to any one?"

  "I have," replied the Idiot, "and a nightmare is what it brought me. Irode up-town on a trolley-car last night, and I gave up my seat tosixteen ladies, two of whom, by-the-way, thanked me."

  "I don't see why more than one of them should thank you," sniffed thelandlady. "If a man gives up a trolley-car seat to sixteen ladies, onlyone of them can occupy it."

  "I stand corrected," said the Idiot. "I gave up a seat to ladies sixteentimes between City Hall and Twenty-third Street. I can't bring myself tosit dow
n while a woman stands, and every time I'd get a seat some womanwould get on the car. Hence it was that I gave up my seat to sixteenladies. Why two of them should thank me, considering the rules, I do notknow. It certainly is not the custom. At any rate, if I had walkedup-town, I should not have had more exercise than I got on that car,bobbing up and down so many times, and lurching here and lurching thereevery time the car stopped, started, or turned a corner. Whether it wasthe thanks or the lurching I got, I don't know, but the incidents ofthe ride were so strongly impressed upon me that I dreamed all night,only in my dreams I was not giving up car seats. The first seat I gaveup to a woman in the dream was an eighty-thousand-dollar seat in theStock Exchange. It was expensive courtesy, but I did it, and mourned soover the result that I waked up and discovered that it was but a dream.Then I went to sleep again. This time I was at the opera. I had the bestseat in the house, when in came a woman who hadn't a chair. Same result.I got up. She sat down, and I had to stand behind a pillar where I couldneither see nor hear. More grief; waked up again, more tired than when Iwent to bed. In ten minutes I dozed off. Found myself an ambitiousstatesman running for the Presidency. Was elected and inaugurated. Upcomes a Woman's Rights candidate. More courtesy. Gave up thePresidential chair to her and went home to obscurity, when again Iawoke tireder than ever. Clock struck four. Fell asleep again. This timeI was prepared for anything that might happen. I found myself in atrolley-car, but with me I had a perforated chair-bottom, such as thestreet peddlers sell. Lady got aboard. I put the perforated chair-bottomon my lap and invited her to sit down. She thanked me and did so. Thenanother lady got on. The lady on my lap moved up and made room for thesecond lady. She sat down. Between them they must have weighed threehundred pounds. I could have stood that, but as time went on more ladiesgot aboard, and every time that happened these first-comers would moveup and make room for them. How they did it I can't say, any more than Ican say how in real life three women can find room in a car-seat vacatedby a little child. They did the former just as they do the latter,until finally I found myself flattened into the original bench like thepattern figure of a carpet. I felt like an entaglio; thirty women byactual count were pressing me to remain, as it were, but the worst of itall was they none of them seemed to live anywhere. We rode on and on andon, but nobody got off. I tried to move--and couldn't. We passed mycorner, but there I was fixed. I couldn't breathe, and so couldn't callout, and I verily believe that if I hadn't finally waked up I should bythis time have reached Hong-Kong, for I have a distinct recollection ofpassing through Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, and Honolulu. Finally, Idid wake, however, simply worn out with my night's rest, which,gentlemen, is why I say, as I have already said, this is a weary world."

  "Well, I don't blame you," said Mr. Whitechoker, kindly. "That was amost remarkable dream."

  "Yes," assented Mr. Pedagog. "But quite in line with his wakingthoughts."

  "Very likely," said the Idiot, rising and preparing to depart. "It wasabsurd in most of its features, but in one of them it was excellent. Iam going to see the president of the Electric Juggernaut Company, as youcall it, in regard to it to-day. I think there is money in that idea ofhaving an extra chair-seat for every passenger to hold in his lap. Inthat way twice as many seated passengers can be accommodated, andcountless people with tender feet will be spared the pain of havingother wayfarers standing upon them."