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“And the first who says the contrary —”
“Indeed! But we will say the contrary so long as there is a place
to say it in!”
“And in spite of your threats —”
“Mind what you are saying, Bat Fynn!”
“Mind what you are saying, Uncle Prudent!”
“I maintain that the screw ought to be behind!”
“And so do we! And so do we!” replied half a hundred voices
confounded in one.
“No! It ought to be in front!” shouted Phil Evans.
“In front!” roared fifty other voices, with a vigor in no
whit less remarkable.
“We shall never agree!”
“Never! Never!”
“Then what is the use of a dispute?”
“It is not a dispute! It is a discussion!”
One would not have thought so to listen to the taunts, objurgations, and
vociferations which filled the lecture room for a good quarter of an hour.
The room was one of the largest in the Weldon Institute, the well-known
club in Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U. S. A. The evening before
there had been an election of a lamplighter, occasioning many public
manifestations, noisy meetings, and even interchanges of blows, resulting in an
effervescence which had not yet subsided, and which would account for some of
the excitement just exhibited by the members of the Weldon Institute. For this
was merely a meeting of balloonists, discussing the burning question of the
direction of balloons.
In this great saloon there were struggling, pushing, gesticulating,
shouting, arguing, disputing, a hundred balloonists, all with their hats on,
under the authority of a president, assisted by a secretary and treasurer. They
were not engineers by profession, but simply amateurs of all that appertained
to aerostatics, and they were amateurs in a fury, and especially foes of those
who would oppose to aerostats “apparatuses heavier than the air,”
flying machines, aerial ships, or what not. That these people might one day
discover the method of guiding balloons is possible. There could be no doubt
that their president had considerable difficulty in guiding them.
This president, well known in Philadelphia was the famous Uncle Prudent,
Prudent being his family name. There is nothing surprising in America in the
qualificative uncle, for you can there be uncle without having either nephew or
niece. There they speak of uncle as in other places they speak of father,
though the father may have had no children.
Uncle Prudent was a personage of consideration, and in spite of his name
was well known for his audacity. He was very rich, and that is no drawback even
in the United States; and how could it be otherwise when he owned the greater
part of the shares in Niagara Falls? A society of engineers had just been
founded at Buffalo for working the cataract. It seemed to be an excellent
speculation. The seven thousand five hundred cubic meters that pass over
Niagara in a second would produce seven millions of horsepower. This enormous
power, distributed amongst all the workshops within a radius of three hundred
miles, would return an annual income of three hundred million dollars, of which
the greater part would find its way into the pocket of Uncle Prudent. He was a
bachelor, he lived quietly, and for his only servant had his valet Frycollin,
who was hardly worthy of being the servant to so audacious a master.
Uncle Prudent was rich, and therefore he had friends, as was natural;
but he also had enemies, although he was president of the club— among
others all those who envied his position. Amongst his bitterest foes we may
mention the secretary of the Weldon Institute.
This was Phil Evans, who was also very rich, being the manager of the
Wheelton Watch Company, an important manufactory, which makes every day five
hundred movements equal in every respect to the best Swiss workmanship. Phil
Evans would have passed for one of the happiest men in the world, and even in
the United States, if it had not been for Uncle Prudent. Like him he was in his
forty-sixth year; like him of invariable health; like him of undoubted
boldness. They were two men made to understand each other thoroughly, but they
did not, for both were of extreme violence of character. Uncle Prudent was
furiously hot; Phil Evans was abnormally cool.
And why had not Phil Evans been elected president of the club? The votes
were exactly divided between Uncle Prudent and him. Twenty times there had been
a scrutiny, and twenty times the majority had not declared for either one or
the other. The position was embarrassing, and it might have lasted for the
lifetime of the candidates.
One of the members of the club then proposed a way out of the
difficulty. This was Jem Chip, the treasurer of the Weldon Institute. Chip was
a confirmed vegetarian, a proscriber of all animal nourishment, of all
fermented liquors, half a Mussulman, half a Brahman. On this occasion Jem Chip
was supported by another member of the club, William T. Forbes, the manager of
a large factory where they made glucose by treating rags with sulphuric acid. A
man of good standing was this William T. Forbes, the father of two charming
girls — Miss Dorothy, called Doll, and Miss Martha, called Mat, who gave
the tone to the best society in Philadelphia.
It followed, then, on the proposition of Jem Chip, supported by William
T. Forbes and others, that it was decided to elect the president “on the
center point.”
This mode of election can be applied in all cases when it is desired to
elect the most worthy; and a number of Americans of high intelligence are
already thinking of employing it in the nomination of the President of the
Republic of the United States.
On two boards of perfect whiteness a black line is traced. The length of
each of these lines is mathematically the same, for they have been determined
with as much accuracy as the base of the first triangle in a trigonometrical
survey. That done, the two boards were erected on the same day in the center of
the conference room, and the two candidates, each armed with a fine needle,
marched towards the board that had fallen to his lot. The man who planted his
needle nearest the center of the line would be proclaimed President of the
Weldon Institute.
The operation must be done at once—no guide marks or trial shots
allowed; nothing but sureness of eye. The man must have a compass in his eye,
as the saying goes; that was all.
Uncle Prudent stuck in his needle at the same moment as Phil Evans did
his. Then there began the measurement to discover which of the two competitors
had most nearly approached the center.
Wonderful! Such had been the precision of the shots that the measures
gave no appreciable difference. If they were not exactly in the mathematical
center of the line, the distance between the needles was so small as to be
invisible to the naked eye.
The meeting was much embarrassed.
Fortunately one of the members, Truck Milnor, insisted that the
measurements should be remade by means of a rule graduated by the micrometrical
machine of M. Perreaux, which can divide a millimeter into fifteen-hundredths
of a millimeter with a diamond splinter, was brought to bear on the lines; and
on reading the divisions through a microscope the following were the results:
Uncle Prudent had approached the center within less than six
fifteenth-hundredths of a millimeter. Phil Evans was within nine
fifteen-hundredths.
And that is why Phil Evans was only secretary of the Weldon Institute,
whereas Uncle Prudent was president. A difference of three fifteen-hundredths
of a millimeter! And on account of it Phil Evans vowed against Uncle Prudent
one of those hatreds which are none the less fierce for being latent.
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