Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1895-01-24

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IN chinery which represented the
IN ruins of hundred castles in
- a the air. He was always invent
ing. was Carbon always spending
DAVIS and nights over the manufacture
of some wonderful machine or other
which was to revOlutiOnize the world
and make him famous, only to find
after all his labor some irremediable
flaw in his plan which rendered the
completion of the machine an impossi-
bility or prevented it working.
He gazed around him on the gaunt
skeletons in wood and brass of past
hopes and clinched his hands fiercely.
"a failure Everything in my life is
miserable failure !" he cried aloud, as
he paced the floor.
1t was not the breakdown of an ordl-
nary invention, however, that wrung
the bitter words from him. He had
grown accustomed to waking in the
morning with an idea worth millions
in his head and going to bed at night
with knowledge that it was not worth
million match sticks, and had become
quite philosophic over the failure of his
plans for money making. But this
time it was different arrangement
that had broken down-an arrange
ment by which the inventor hoped to
make himself home and children,
and the handspring, in the shape of
Deborah Dene, the woman he loved,
had failed him. In his clinched hand
he held the letter she had sent him,
abruptly announcing that she wished
to break off their engagement.
There was revolver lying on the in
ventor's bench which had thrice had
it's bright barrel pointed toward his
forehead, but three times the mans
purpose had failed him at the decisive
moment.
The fact of his cowardice added to
the mans irritation against himself
II fail i'll everything that would
make life worth living, and cannot even
kill myself he went on in his despair
ing soliloquy. "Must everything try
I prove failure ~
He took up the revolver once more
with sudden determination, and hold
ing the barrel between his teeth, pulled
/ the trigger. There was click, but
nothing more; he had forgotten, after
all, to load the thing.
He had failed once more to kill him.
self, and the nervous shock he had eX-
perienced had made it impossible for
him to repeat the attempt. He must
think of something he told himself,
which would make the last act easier
' for him. He was determined on sui
eide, and had committed himself by
informing Deborah of his Intentions
but when the single movement of a
finger was in a moment to make all the
difference between life and death, his
physical courage deserted him, and his
finger became powerless. He must pre-
pare some plan for killing himself in
/ which the exact moment of his death
would be decided by chance or the
action of machinery.
The idea pleased him by suggesting
the need of invention a need which
his mind was always ready to meet,
and he set himself with melancholy
pleasure to think out the details of a
killing machine which should fulfill all
I his requirements. Death must be pain
less and instantaneous, of course, but
must act at a different moment from
| that at which the victim took the de-
cisive action which would make his
fate certain and Interchangeable. He
drew out plan rapidly making rough
sketches of the mechanical details on
| the back of Deborah Dene'S fatal let
. ter.
Then he went down to his forge on
the floor below and worked hard at the
manufacture of the instrument he had
invented. 1t was finished by midnight,
and, in grim sort of way, Ralph Gar
don was proud of his work.
The invention was in the form of a
dynamite bomb, which would explode
by the slow action of an acid eating
Through a barrier of cement. One of
his past failures had left him with the
dynamite on his hands. 1t was inclosed
n a carefully welded iron case, joined
strongly, SO that once the case was
closed it could only be opened by the
exercise of considerable force. 1t was
connected as strongly to an iron chain,
which the inventor fastened around
MS waist, joining the two ends with
paddock. When he had locked it he
aid the key on his anvil and with the
troke of his hammer beat it out of
hape.
"Now,' he said to himself, almost
Fiumphantly, when it was done, ''cow-
rd or no coward, in about half an hour
must die"
He was glad that the affair was set
led. There was nothing left to live
pr. The only thing that he still feared
as his own want of courage and de-
animation.
To get away from his anvil and tools,
18th the chance they still offered him
changing his mind and breaking the |
hahn round his waist, as well as to save
be empty house from needless injury, |
he inventor put on his hat and walked
ut into the country road that stretched |
front of his lonely dwelling.
He walked along rapidly, anxious,
lille his determination remained firm,
place as great distance as possible
etween himself and any chance of I'M
Ding his handiwork. There was not |
oul abroad, of course, at ST CHI an hour,
nd Carbon had no fear of injuring