The Inventions of the Idiot

on for the

t, rubbing his eyes sleepil

"I never expected to hear that plaint

occasionally. I wouldn't give a cent for the man who never had his moments of misery. It takes night to enable us to appreciate daytime. Misery is a foil necessary to the full appreciation of j

o betray any signs of weariness. It got to work at the usual hour this morning, and

one," put in the Doctor. "I fin

Do you find out these mistakes in your pract

hat mistake lies in the Idiot's assumption that he is himself the world. He regards himself

d with that idea, for instance, that I shall have to be put in a padded cell and manacled so that I may

think it would be a good idea if you were to carry the hallucination out far enough to put a c

me the ice that was used to cool the coffee this morning, I shall b

on either side of the city, and a New York Juggernaut Company, Unlimited, running trolley-cars up and down two of our more prominent highways, suicide i

d by a Toledo blade. You do not realize the terrors of your situation until you cease to be susceptible to them. Furthermore, I do not believe in suicide. It is, in my judgment, the worst crime a man can commit, and I cannot but admire the remarkable di

dictionary again

and, if I want to get hold of a new word that will increase my seeming importance to the community, I turn to it. That's where I got 'amercement.' I don't hold that its use

the School-master, with a grim smile at the idea of the Idiot having such a boo

ic, I presume," r

rdon?" said th

, but I will say that those who are themselves periphras

said the School-master, elev

n I saw that a New York bookseller had a lot of them marked down from two dollars to one, I sent and got one. I thought it was strange for a bookseller to be selling rare animals, but that was his business, not mine; and as I was anxious to see wh

animal?" asked Mrs

Pedagog. "Pray-ah-I beg of you,

u have read it, you would not be without, since it gives your vocabulary a twist which makes you proof ag

rved Mr. Pedagog, acridly. "You have been memorizing syllables. R

tter already, now that I have spoken them. I am not half so weary as I was, but for my weariness I

leman who occasionally imbibed, with a tone

rson of a sullen disposition, but of reckless mould as well. I would no sooner think of braving a Welsh-rarebit unaccom

ody as you could have a wak

A tugboat, most insignificant of crafts, roils up the surface of the sea more t

kwheat-cake. "However, wakes have nothing to do with the case. I had a most frightful dream, and it was not due to Welsh-rarebits, but to my fatal weakness

id Mr. Pedagog; "but what of it? H

t me. I rode up-town on a trolley-car last night, and I gave up

" sniffed the landlady. "If a man gives up a trolley-car

again. This time I was at the opera. I had the best seat 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 could neither see nor hear. More grief; waked up again, more tired than when I went to bed. In ten minutes I dozed off. Found myself an ambitious statesman running for the Presidency. Was elected and inaugurated. Up comes a Woman's Rights candidate. More courtesy. Gave up the Presidential chair to her and went home to obscurity, when again I awoke tireder than ever. Clock struck four. Fell asleep again. This time I was prepared for anything that might happen. I found myself in a trolley-car, but with me I had a perforated chair-bottom, such as the street peddlers sell. Lady got aboard. I put the perforated chair-bottom on my lap and invited her to sit down. She thanked me and did so. Then another lady got on. The lady on my lap moved up and made room for the second lady. She sat down. Between them they must have weighed three hundred pounds. I could have stood that, but as time

d Mr. Whitechoker, kindly. "Th

gog. "But quite in line

the Electric Juggernaut Company, as you call it, in regard to it to-day. I think there is money in that idea of having an extra chair-seat for every passenger to hold in his l