Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1917-10-11
CHAPTER VII.
Ira MaCR Beard.

Ira MacBeard was one Of those rare
men who are recognized by their CON
tempOrarieS as master minds. To the
public he was unknown, but among
the learned he was mentioned in the
same breath with Faraday, Sir Isaac
Newton and LaVoiSier. Hatfield of the
March Hares' club had once honOred
him by publicly comparing him with
james |.
He had discovered the secret of cold
light, and had received Il fortune from
one Of the largest electrical companies
for destroying his papers. This en-
abled him to free himself from the
poverty in which he had lived.
lie had bisected an ion-upOn
blackboard; a thing considered theo-
retically impossible.
He had solved the problem of utiliz-
ing solar energy, although he had net
succeeded in making his process valu-
able commercially.
Unfortunately, like many men of
genius, MacBeard had one disastrous
failing He had trained himself intel
leCtually at the expense of his moral
faculties. He had never learned to
control his primal gutter-urchin pro-
pensities.
He was u thief.
He did not steal big things, but little
ones, and everyone knows that this is
more damning socially.
They called it kleptOmania, and let
him resign But it was not kleptO-
mania; it was theft MacBeardS ca
reer was finished. The only club that
would admit him to membership was
the Inventors'-and that only because
the furious chickering's of its members
that there should be no blackballing.
Anyone could join the Inventors club,
but only inventors wanted to.
MacBeard, embittered, brooded over
his wrongs. They assumed mOnStrOuS
proportions in his mind. He was Al
ready approaching fifty; he believed
that at death the soul perishes with
the body, and the thought of his gil
gantic brain being obliterated flied
him with frenzy. He wanted to make
lasting mark upon the world.
His first idea was to use his solar
energy plant to produce simultaneous
eruptiOnS of the volcanoes i'll Italy and
Iceland, Japan and California upon an
unprecedented scale. 4 lava desert
should cover all the titled fields and
cities burying man thousand feet
under its surface and celebrating civil
lization
The science and art of nineteen
twentieths of the world would disap-
pear. MacBeard not only hated the
world, which had made him an out
cast, but he despiSed it intellectually
as beyond redemption. He wanted to
heStride its ruins as q Supcrman, a
god.
However, his scheme had several
drawbacks. 1t was utterly beyond his
financial means. He could not fore
see exactly the results of it. There
were disturbing possibilities, and he
was not the man to act without mathe-
NAUTICAL eXactitude.
His vengeance must take other FORMS
He wanted a less academic plan, one
which reeked less of the midnight
lamp. He wanted Il more concrete
personal triumph. He wanted to lead
an army to victory, not to sit back
and watch the working out of blind
forces that he had set in motion.
Besides, destruction must be fol
lowed by construction, to satisfy his
scientific mind.
His second thought was to produce
race of men, somewhere in the ice
bound wastes Of Greenland, that
should grow to maturity in a few
years race organized for war, pri
NAL blend of man and tiger. 1t ha6
been done with the plants.
But he was too old. He would be
seventy before this plan could be car
ried to perfection. And then it was
improbable that the details would
work out as he anticipated. His fina
idea came through Masterman.
Masterman was one of the many
men whom he had broken in his day:
of power. But Masterman was of ;
different caibes from the rest Mas
terman had tried to come back, an'
had almost succeeded. -s-g
MacBeard, at first cqntemptuous Q
the old dreamer, came at last to watcl
Masterman uneasily. He knew tina
the old captain was .erazed upon tn.