A Martyr to Science

I am the victim of a very unscientific circumstance. And yet no man could be less deserving of such a contretemps as brought me to grief. It was all the result of too deep an interest in science, coupled with too deep a trust in human nature.

My name is Grindle, Thomas Grindle. I am a broker, and a fairly successful one. I have a select circle of friends. I have a comfortable boarding place. I have my books, and my pipe and my wheel. From all of which I think you may be expected to conclude I am a bachelor. Your surmise is correct.

But notwithstanding my six and forty years, I had reason recently to hope that the stigma of single blessedness was in a fair way to be removed. I say I had reason to hope. I have no such reason now.

Her name was Matilda. Those who knew her well called her Mattie. To me she was only Miss Twitters. She was one of our boarders, and the landlady was her aunt.

I think I was attracted by Matilda at the very first meal. She came down to breakfast in a white wrapper. And though she ate liberally of corn beef hash and cornmeal muffins, I seemed to see something angelic about her. I fancy I should have got along all right with Miss Twitters if it hadn’t been for Gibson. I never liked Gibson. Yet he had a most insinuating way. He always called me Grinny, but he did it in such a bluff and hearty fashion that somehow I couldn’t take offense.

Besides, Gibson humored my passion for science. I haven’t a great deal of time for actual study on the new innovations, but I always read the newspapers thoroughly. Gibson was equally well posted, while his fancy was somewhat playful, he was well up in the technical terms and knew a great deal more than most people gave him credit for knowing.

One evening at the supper table we fell to discussing Tesla’s assertion that telephoning can be done without the use of a wire. Gibson agreed with Tesla. I was inclined to take Edison’s view. Miss Twitters, it seemed to me, rather sympathized with my arguments, and encouraged by her bright eyes, I talked my prettiest.

“Well,” said Gibson, “let’s put it to the test.”

“The test?” I cried.

“Yes,” he answered. “I’ll show you. Here, Tompkins, you and Bushwick go up on the top floor and listen. I’ll shut the door of the dining room and then throw my voice at you. If you hear me and understand, come right down.”

Would you believe it, those two young fellows meekly obeyed Gibson, and we heard them climbing the stairs. Gibson shut the door carefully after them and waited a minute or so. Then he put his lips close to the panels and in his ordinary tones said:

“Beer!”

A second or two later we heard Tompkins and Bushwick madly galloping down the stairs. Then they rushed into the dining room.

“What did I say?” inquired Gibson.

“You said beer!” they cried in chorus.

“Wonderful!” said Miss Twitters.

It did seem wonderful, but I’m afraid it was all a put up job.

“We’ll experiment with this again,” said Gibson to me.

And we did.

Bushwick and Gibson got up a little Saturday afternoon excursion. They knew a delightful spot, and all the boarders were invited. The ladies furnished the eatables, and the men provided the punch. Of course, we all went on our wheels. It was a very pretty spot, a sort of sugar loaf of a rocky hill, with fissures here and there and the greenest level of grass. When we had climbed up we found that the view was really lovely. Matilda told me so, and I said it was — but, of course, my eyes were on her. When the lunch boxes were piled up, and the wheels stacked securely, the party separated, scattering here and there. Bushwick walked away with Matilda, but Gibson stayed with me. When they were all quite gone, he turned around suddenly and I saw that he was excited.

“Grinny,” he cried, “do you see those rocks?”

“Why, yes,” I answered.

“Do you know what they are?”

I admitted that I did not. Geology is a study in which I had taken no interest.

“By George,” he said, “I think they are magnesium.”

“What of it?” I asked.

“What of it?” he echoed. “Why, there are the very rocks to test Tesla’s theory. There is no rock that will carry sound waves so perfectly as magnesium.”

I began to feel interested.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, “Tesla hints at it, and then I have tried a little experimenting on my own account. See here.”

He led me to a deep fissure in the rock and carefully posting me against the wall told me to listen. I put my ear against the cold stone and eagerly awaited. Pretty soon to my great surprise I heard muffled voices and occasional bursts of laughter. I looked up at Gibson.

“I thought you would,” he said smiling; “those sounds come from the other side of the hill. Here,” he suddenly added, “we’ll make this a real experiment. You stay here and I’ll go around on the other side and get somebody to talk through to you. Look at your watch. In five minutes say ‘Hello.’”

And he hurried away.

I waited impatiently for the time to elapse. It did seem rather ridiculous, but if Tesla said it could be done, why should I doubt it?

When the five minutes were up I called:

“Hello, hello!”

Then I heard a voice say:

“Some one is calling.”

It was a muffled voice, but it was unmistakably Matilda’s.

“Miss Twitters,” I called, “Miss Twitters.”

“Some one is calling me,” cried Matilda. “Whath is it?” she added.

“Dear Miss Twitters,” I ventured.

“Why, it sounds like Mr. Gindle’s voice,” said Matilda.

“It is,” I called, “it is your Grindle’s voice. Can you hear me, Miss Twitters, Matilda, Mattie — dear Mattie?”

“Sir!” she cried, in maiden modesty.

“Listen, Matilda,” I passionately declaimed. “My heart goes out to you through cubic yards of solid rock. No obstacle can check the vital current that links two loving hearts. I love you, Matilda. I love —”

I got no further.

There was a wild burst of demoniac laughter. I looked up and under the top of the curtain of rock at the back of the fissure were a lot of grinning faces. I looked around. There were a half dozen more on the outside. It was a trap. That fissure opened into a cave and in that cave Gibson had contrived to store the rest of the party, gathering them there through the entrance only a few yards away.

As I looked up at them they roared with laughter and I heard the idiotic medical student say to the landlady:

“Has he been this way long?”

Of course I tried to treat it as a joke, but it was a hard effort. Matilda wouldn’t look at me, and for a moment or two I felt like braining Gibson. I never knew a man with such effrontery.

“Hang it all,” he whispered to me, “you ought to have more sense than to mix love with science.”

Well, Matilda became Mrs. Bushwick last week and I have changed my boarding place. — Cleveland Plain Dealer.