The Inventions of the Idiot

trical Su

be an electrician. It seems to me that of all modern pursuits, b

than there is in Idiocy, too, I f

e said to be anything more than a luxury, while electricity has become a necessity. I do not even claim that any real lasting benefit can come

lectricity," said the Doctor. "The science

ot, feeling, as I do, that in the electrical current lies the germ of the Elixir of Lif

red from an aggravated case of youngness for as long a time a

y reason that as yet the formula for the Electrical Elixir has not been discovered; that it will be discovered be

ot! Think of it!

apsule," said the Idiot. "The man with car-hor

llegory is not entirely a

sion would have to put up the shutters and go into some such business as writing articles on 'Measles as It Used to Be,' or 'Disorders of the Ante-Electrical Period.' The fine part of it all is that we should not have to rely for our medicines upon the state of the arsenic market, or the quinine supply, or the squill product of the year. Electric sparks can be made without number whether the sun shines or not. The failure of the Peruvian Bark Crop, or the destruction by an early frost of the Castor Oil Wells, would cease to be a hideous possibility to delicate natures. They could

ul?" suggested Mr. Whitechoker. "Why not devise an electrical f

is one among us, excepting Mrs. Pedagog, to whom twenty-five was not the most delightful period of existence. To Mrs. Pedagog, as to all women, eighteen is the limit. But men at twenty-five and women at eighteen know so much, enjoy so much, regard themselves so highly! There is nothing blasé about them then. Disillusion-which I think ought to be called dissolution-comes later. At thirty a man discovers t

simist he is!" said Mr.

branches off into Pessimism when Elec

gan the Bibliomaniac, but

ot old enough or cross-grained enough as yet to be a pessimist, and it's because I don't want to be a pessimist that I want this Elixir of Electricity to hurry up and have itself patented. If men when they reached the age of twenty-five, and women at eighteen, would begin to t

he biggest

s got to t

woman, sh

s number jus

et. "I'll make a note of that, and if

diot, slyly. "I shall be satisf

ally in the spirit in which it

tion. Mr. Edison and other wizards have been too much occupied with electric lights and telephones and phonographs and t

nts to live forever, and if it were possible that all men might live forever, you'd soon find the world so crowded that the slighter actors in the human comedy wou

verybody, including myself. Now-well, I'm older. But enough of schemes, which I must admit are somewhat visionary-as the telephone would have seemed one hundred years ago. Let us come down to realities in electricity. I can't see why more is not made of the phonograph for the benefit of the public. Take a man like Chauncey M. De Choate. He goes here and he goes there to make speeches, when I've no doubt he'd much prefer to stay at home cutting coupons off his bonds. Why can't the phonograph voice do his duty? Instead of making the same speech over and over again, why can't some electrician so improve the phonograph that De Choate can say what he has to say through a funnel, have it impressed on a cylinder, duplicated and reduplicated and scattered broadcast over the world? If Mr. Edison could impart what poets call stentorian tones to the phonograph, he'd be doing a great and noble work. Again, for smaller things, like a dance, Why can't the phonograph be made useful at a ball? I attended one the other night, and when I wanted to dance the two-step the band played the polka; if I wished the polka it played a waltz. Some men can only dance the two-step-they don't know the waltz, the polka, or the schottische. Now why can't the phon

airs?" said the Poet, who, in common with the Idiot, knew several

he things that usually happen on stairs at dances, as well as in conservatories at balls, with the aid of a phonograph a man could propose to a girl in the presence of a thousand people, and nobody but the maiden herself would be the wiser. I tell you, gentlemen," the Idiot added, enthusiastica

that while he considered the Idiot very much of an idiot, there was no

hould not have had to guess at what you meant and lead you on to express yourself more clearly. I