The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-12-13
THE NOBLE RECLUSE:

@ N1NAO0E shoulder, a few words which Ninth Ave- nue did not understand would be ex- changed and they would walk slowly home again.
 Mysterious Couple.
 l am afraid they were not all good neighbors, though the Chevalier told item repeatedly that they were This is a. sus- picious world. and. as one of the neigh bors said, If you ain't suspicious you'Ii lose your furniture" And 1t is a matter of history that this strange couple, for all their love for birds and flowers and chill dren, excited suspicion in some sullen | breasts 's
 Dften by day and not seldom by night from the closely shattered house there came metallic ringing. as of some enc beating upon an anvil, worker in metal behind closed doors, and the suspicious | souls became convinced that counter I feiter was working in their midst, and they went around to the station house and talked about it.
 Soon a plain clothes man" appeared and rapped upon the door. When he came out half an hour later his face was | wreathed in smiles. "IIe ain't no ccun- | terfeiter," he said to the crowd of those ! and reputation of the neighborhood. Hes only an old guinea what's slipped his trolley. But there ain't no harm in him ! that can see."
 But for the most part this remarkable couple, because they were rem arxablo, lived behind closed doors in the little old basement house shrouded fin mystery. | Confined as they were to such n lini,ed | space, they turned their stone raved yard I garden w10So Q1lU rfy ho lwithered flowers and the frosted vines still testify toS They found it a place of ash barrels and tomato cans and stray shoes and stranger cats, and, with heir love of the beautiful. they converted it into a oowery of flowers, of honeysuckles and morning glories, in which soon birds ap- peared. particularly an escaped Canary. l Here they led paradisiacal lives and ignored the Ninth Avenue word without
 But these pleasant days were If ehort duration. A cruel. hacking cough chung 10 the wife of the Chevalier, a cough which the soft spring days had .uDdued | somewhat but not cured, and when mid- summer came he decided that inc com panion of his solitude could not stand an- | other New York winter and that sine must return to the land of orange blossoms whose child she was. And so the Chev- | aiier set about securing her passage south l and, though it took all his remaining funds, no one would have known it, least I of all his doubtless unsuspecting wife. cab drove up and the couple drove away in 1t, the Chevalier with a bouquet in one hand to speak for him when the 1 ship was out of sight, and a few hours later he returned alone. In the days that followed he kept very much to himself Morning, noon and night the strange me- | tallic ringing came from his basement workshop. Now and again he wandered out for food and sometimes stopped 50 talk with his neighbors to tell them how selfish he had been in sending his good | wife away.
 ''she had become my only care" he said. Day and night was haunted by the thought, What would become of her if should die? Now she has gone home to her frineds. where she will have loving kindness and protection. It is only for a I.year," he added, 'and then my machine will be completed. Its success is assured Then we will live happily ever after | ward"
 Mystery of the Machine. The Chevalier was very reticent to the I few who approached him as to the nature of his machine, to the perfecting of which he now began to consecrate his energeis day and night. Some thought it was a | flying machine, some a perpetual motion motor, but those who knew him best in whose basements he would now and then drop to exchange few words, say 1t was an electric massage battery which, when developed to it's highest capacity, would
 give to all the children of men eternal life and health.
 When we study the laws that govern
 the universe" they understood him to say, in his broken English, We see that 1t is not natural to die. We should not die but live forever. Life is energy; energy is electricity. If we but keep our vitality sustained, which is nothing more nor less than our supply of electrici- ty, we shall live forever" And the pur- pose of the machine was to help every | body to keep up his or her supply of cleo tricity to the level of eternal life. Lead ing the life of hermit in a city block where thousands dwell, the Chevalier worked day and night throughout the fall. From early morning until very late | passers by could hear the never idle forge, and then suddenly one day not long ago silence possessed the place.
 Some of the neighbors ventured to ask the Chevalier what was wrong, and he told them that something was still want | ing to perfect his machine, this giver of | perpetual, desirable life. There was A flaw. an unforeseen obstacle, but bah! he l would overcome it as he had so many I others. What he needed now was money and a little leisure for quiet thinking. and l both of these he. would secure by means of a little machine. a little breadwinning toy that he had contrived. whose profits would help him on the way toward his greater achievement.
 And then he went out every afternoon calling at the drug stores in the neigh borhood and explaining to the clerks what the little money making contrivance was that he wanted to put on the market If was apparently simply a coper canister that looked like a giant firecracker or a