The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1900-06-15
His Last Invention
It Failed Like the Rest to
Do Its Work.


Ralph Carbon strobe modify up and
down his workshop, which was Uttered
with the odds and ends of machinery
which represented the ruins of a hun
dred castles in the air. He was always
%inventing, was Carbon; always spend
ing days and nights over the manufac-
ture of some wonderful machine or 9TH
er which was to revolutionize the
world and make him famous, only to
find after all his labor some irremedia-
BILE 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
skeleton in wood and brass of past
hopes and clinched his hand iercely.
"a failure! Everything in my life is
a miserable failure!" he cried aloud as
he paced the floor.
1t was not the breakdown Of an ordi-
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
Aho dSuu anu SOlAS W Deu dL ulSll WIN
the knowledge that it was not worth a
million match sticks and had become
quite philosophical over the failure of
his plans for money making. But this
time it was a different arrangement
that had broken down. an arrangement
by which the inventor hoped to make
himself a home and children, and the
] mqjnSnlinU in tho Shnnn pf Dahnroh
Dene, the woman he loved, had failed
him. In his clinched hand he held the
letter she had sent him abruptly an
%nouncing that she wished to break off
their engagement.
There was q revolver lying on the in
ventor's bench which had thrice had its
bright barre! pointed toward his fore
head. but three times the mans pur-
pose had fai,ed ilim Mt the decisive mo-
inert.
The fact OF his cowardice added to
h rams irritation against himself.
Il Fail in everything that would make
life worth living and cannot even kill
myself" he went on in his d%espairing
soliloquy. Must everything l try
prove a failure?''
He took up the revolver once more
with sudden determination and, hold
ing the barrel between his teeth, pulled
h trigger. There was a click, but
nothing more. He had forgotten. after
all, to load the thing.
He had failed once more to kill him.
self, and the rvo 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 in
forming 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 Garage deserted him and his
finger became powerless. He must
prepare some plan for killing himself
in which the exact momen 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 a melancholy pleas
ure to think out the details of a killing
machine which should fulfill all his re-
quirements. Death must be painless
n instantaneous, of course, but must
act at u different moment from that at
which the victim took the decisive ac-
ton which would make his fate certain
n Interchangeable. He drew out a plan
rapidly, making rough sketches of the
mechanical details on the back Of De
borah Dene's fatal letter.
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.
n in a 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 inclos-
ed in a carefully welded iron case join
ed 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
his waist, Joining the two ends with a
Yale paddock. When he had locked it,
he laid The key ON his anvil and with a
stroke of his hammer beat it out Of
shape.
To get away from his anvil and tools,
with the chance they still offered him
OF changing his mind and breaking the
chain round his waist, as well as to
save the empty house from needless in
jury, the inventor put on his hat and
walked out into the country road that