Manual Training High School - Prospect Yearbook (Brooklyn, NY)

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would look at John as being decidedly queer with his experiments and such was what I thought. But now it strikes me that he may have meant something else. n VVe were on the outskirts of the village by now. I thought we must be nearing our destination. How long do we drive? I queried. Oh, 'bout an hour, replied my guide after I had asked him twice. Having had no supper this gave me some dismay. Besides it was a good deal colder than I had expected. It was no cheerful journey that I looked forward to. And yet it actually turned out worse than my most pessi- mistic thoughts. As we moved along a mist or fog seemed to come from nowhere, and a slight flurry of snow began to fall. The like of the fog I have never seen. I looked up and saw some stars, yet could not see the horse's head in front of me. At other times it parted before us, only to close in after a time. It would become thick, then thin, it would rise and fall. I felt that every hoof-beat was playing my funeral march, and the fog was dancing to the tune of it. Like thoughts persisted in spite of the fact that I do not believe in presentiments. Perhaps my empty stomach caused them. At length, after what seemed hours, we stopped beside a gate. I got out, and immediately the driver turned around, disappearing into the fog that had troubled me so. I stumbled along a road and found myself before an old, weather-beaten house. It had long since lost its paint, and was now the color of charred wood. I had hardly knocked before the door was opened by John. He looked Twenty-four at me wildly, grabbed my grip, and threw it into the house. I started to say something.about a bite to eat, and a cup of hot coffee, but he interrupted me gru'Tiy. The invention will work better if you don 't eat, he growled, and pulled me in the direction of a shadowy out- line that proved to be a barn. Through the fog it looked like a monstrous ogre waiting to devour me. I shivered violently, half from the cold, half at the thought my morbid brain had conjured up. The barn had at- tached to it one of those tall cylindrical structures called a silo and used for storing corn or other produce. We went up in this, clear to the top and there was a queer contraption indeed. The first thing I noticed was a huge wheel and axle. A heavy rope was wound around the wheel, and at the end attached to the four corners of what looked like a cedar chest. I bent forward to examine and as I did so, something heavy struck the back of my head. A splitting headache brought me back to consciousness. I found my- self, without an overcoat, strapped tightly in a sitting position on the chest. My arms were raised, strapped to the rope above me. Below me was a black void. I looked over at the platform and saw John gazing at me fiercly. Listen! he half shrieked. I felt the box go down a bit just then. You've been tied there since ten o'clock. The box descends an inch every five minutes making a foot an hour. It was just thirty feet from the bottom of this silo to the bottom of that chest. In other words, as it is half-past ten now, you will reach the

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A Page From Poe Strangers always take me for a man of fifty or sixty. ln reality I have just passed my thirty-fifth birthday. My gray hair and many of the deep lines in my face were made one terrible night last winter. That night rc- occurs in haunting nightmares now- and always will. Mr. Robt. Cornelius, 295 Bleecker St., N. Y. City. Have important invention. Come in- spect personally. Please wire. John Kcllner. Such was the telegram that l re- ceived late in the morning one exceed- ingly cold Saturday towards the end of January. lt had come from Luzon, New York. The last time I had seen John Kellner was the day I called him into office to show him an invention oi' mine. The telegram brought the pic- ture before my eyes of his short, squat figure, his dark skin, his unruly black hair and his eyes dark and piercing. He always seemed to be looking for something hidden. I often thought he could pierce the very walls of death if he willed. Probably it was his invent- ing mind, making itself felt. At any rate he had invented several import- ant things for the firm, always insist- ing on showing them to me in private first. I never understood this, but humored him. As I was saying, before, I got side- tracked, John Kellner came in at my bidding this time lo see my invention. It was a small improvement that I had patented, nothing really important. I invented that, he said slowly, You stole my idea! and he drew from his pocket a model almost the duplicate of mine. He explained heat- edly that he had thought of the ap- pliance a month before and had com- pleted it the very day. In return I told him that I had applied for a patent about ten days previous. He looked at me, half-opened his mouth as if to speak and left the office. I shivered at the way he looked at me. The telegram was the first word I had had directly or indirectly from him since that day. It seemed clear to me that he had gone off to experiment in secret for it was not at all unlike him. If John called it important, I decided that his invention was worth investi- gating. Yet something told me to send an employee. Ilowever, I knew John would show it to me only so I hunted up Luzon. If found that it was over a hundred miles from the city, on the O. and W. R. R. There was a train leaving at 3 P. M. I wired John and took that train. ' It was about a quarter of eight when I reached Luzon. As I got off the train I was addressed by a thick-looking countryman who said he had come from John's. Witliout stopping to eat I went with him to his buggy. As we rode through the town I inquired about John. The fellow muttered some- thing half unintelligible about queer doings. Naturally the country people Twenty-three

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bottom twenty-nine and a half hours from now, or at four o'clock tomor- row afternoon. This box is weighted with iron, and there is seven feet of water at the bottom of the silo. You will be dead long before you touch bottom, and I shall be revenged. You stole part of my brain, when you took that invei .tion long ago. I shall watch your fact as you go down, and be hapnv. J' t five in the morning T will leave to catch the seven o'clock train to the city. I will leave orders for someone to come for you at five in the afternoon. He will get here, find a note directing him to the silo and will discover your corpse on the box, completely submerged in water. And I shall be bound for South America perhaps, 'cr Japan. They will never find me. M first I tried to reason with him, then I cursed him violently, and finally numb with cold, feverishly hot at other times I looked at him. And he talked on and on, boring me through and through with his mad man eyes. His talk was punctuated with the little clicks. After a while I could see him no more but heard him above me. Then he moved down to another landing. I lost all idea of time. The raving talk of that crazed inventor, the clicking seemed to be something I had long heard when John prodded me to at- tention. It is a quarter after five, he spoke gruesomely, I leave, you 'll see me no more. But I depart satisfied at last, you will pay for your theft! He left, and ere long I became in- sensible to everything. At length cold water around my legs caused me to take notice. From John's figures, I suppose it was about ten o'elock Sun- day morning. I heard a click, and felt the water rise a little. I shrieked, I wept, I prayed. ,Do you know, can you imagine, what it is like to be compelled to drown, to be absolutely powerless to prevent it? My brain told me I was drowning. I struggled against my bonds. I put every bit of vigor in me into these terrific efforts. With a last super- numan heave, I felt them give. I sat up in bed in a hospital. A couple of husky attendants had been holding me down. My brain was full of questions, but it was a long time before I learned the full history of my miraculous deliverance from death. John had told the livery man to call for me at five. He had done so and after a search, found me on the chest floating in the water. John had some- how forgotten to put the scrap-iron in the box, for it was found in the barn. But even so, I came near dying as he wished. I had a severe case of pneu- monia complicated by brain fever. All that medical skill could do has since been done. Now I am here, in this delightful California air, regaining every day more of my former strength. It is like a page from Poe. ,il..i-i-l- I wonder why this poet speaks of the stream this way: The sleepy river drowsed and dreamed. Probably because it was confined to its bed. Reason for Haste. McCloskey- Phat is yure hoarry, Mike? McGowan-Con sprinkling cartj Sure it's 'goin t' rain, Pat, an it's me that wants t' git me wur-rk done befoor it comes. Twenty-five