News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1884-11-13
AN INVENTORS PERIL.

--Hd'okeye.
AN INVENTORS PERIL.
The lane. leading east from Chatham
street, is sometimes called Golost
street. 1t is a greasy, sodden, dirt-lader
place, crowded with junk shops and sec.
ond-hand clothing stores. st. Nraln,
the inventor, tor q long time occupied
the top floor of No. 10. 1t was a large,
unfinished loft, with naked, smoke
stained, cobwebbed rafters overhead,
and two dingy windows looking down on
the Goloshian pavement, with its seven
distinct strata of dirt. Since st. Vrain
had hired this comfortless garret, ten
years before, no foot of stranger had
entered it, not even that of his land
lord. Only after nightfall did the in
ventcr himself leave the place, nor, even
then, until he had locked and double
lock ed both his trap-door and the door
at the foot of the stair. Occupying the
central portion of the attic, and reach
ing from window to window, was the
machine upon which st. Vrain hadspent
his fortune. At each end of the room
was an upright, cylindrical mass OF
metal, covered with polished knobs of
silver, connected together by wires, and
insulated from the floor by plates of
glass. The metal was steel, but it was
steel which had been subnaitted to 8
costly and secret process, and treated
with various chemicals, for a purpose
new to science. In the space between
these huge cylinders, each one fifteen
feet high, were retorts, blowpipes, work
benches, and all the tools of an expert
chemist, also a forge, and the tools of
worker in metal. When one examined
more closely the huge steel cylinders, it
was seen that they were made of small
plates riveted together, and, huge as
the task seemed, 1T WAS evident that one
mans unaided labor had produced 1t.
st. Vrain sat beside his workable,
one night in August, and looked at the
cylinders of steel. He touched knob,
close at hand, and soft, lambent flame
| began to play about each. The dull
metal became fairly luminous. and a
delicate sound, clear and vibrant as that
of an Eolian harp, stirred the dull air,
cit is done" said st. Vrain, ''and the
forty million dollars that my grandfather
rifed from the treasure-vault of the
Incas, in the heart of the Andes, are
nearly spent for the sake of this, my
gift to poor, struggling humanity.
Never yet have said a word, and SO, if
died tonight, and careless hands
wrested apart my cylinders, half of New
York might perish; must write down
the outline"
He found a large sheet of coarse
brown wrapping paper, and began to
write. Steadily for several hours, the
words flowed from his pen till both
sides of the sheet were covered with al
most microscopic writing. Then he left
it on the table and went into the street
below, returning with a miserable cur,
which he had cajoled upstairs with a
bit of bread.
st. Vrain now touched another knob.
The light that shone from one of the
tall cylinders grew brighter and its color
varied from pale pearl and clear opal to
lemon and orange, rose and crimson and
tremulous violet; the light that shone
from the other changed to a sombre and
inexpressihly mournful tint, from one
came sense of Joy and warmth and Vi
tality, from the other sense of pain,
and cold, and decay,
''Life and Death, North and South
Pole" cried st. Vrain, exultingly.
Now, let me test the invention that an.
initiates time and space and sets the
human race free from its bonds, and
makes us gods on earth, and gives us
thousand years of life y
He picked up the crouching dog at
his feet, and hastily scrawling few
words on scrap of paper, tied it by
means of a strip of handkerchief to the
dogs neck. He went to the dark and
cold cylinder, the one he had ikened to
the South Pole. Gently, firmly, rever-
emily, as if in the presence of mighty
force, he put his hand upon great
brown knob, and listened. He opened
a curving- -door-the cylinder was hollow.
A dull smoke, like dust of opium, strug-
gled out, and for second he staggered
as against the influence of sleep.
"Ak the pores of the steel boxes
eak q little STILL" he said, as he
thrust the yelping dog inside and closed
the door upon him.
st. Vrain went to the other cylinder |
and, opening the door, peered in. A
warm and fragrant and inspiriting |
breath rushed out. He closed it and re- |
turned to the first one. Four silver
knobs were close to his hand. He spoke,
as If explaining the mysteries of the |
to stranger.
'tNow, when [ touch the first knob.
my Solvent Force will operate, and pain
lessly and instantaneously melt that dog
into his original atoms. When I touch
the second knob, these atoms will flow
out through the hollow white wire, and
nto the second cylinder, arriving there
long before they have lost any of their
mutual attraction, or relationship.
drawn there by the virtue of the force in
that cylinder. When 1 touch the third
knob this Force will instantaneously and
painlessly reconstruct the creature.
down to his every hair, and even reor
ganize the ink particles of the letter I
hunO tn his naok Wban II touoI Al.