Array Коллектив авторов - 75 лучших рассказов / 75 Best Short Stories

‘I see all that,’ I said, ‘but I don’t see how it helps you any. The knowledge that a creditor is coming won’t pay his bill. You can’t escape unless you jump out of the window.’

Rivarol laughed softly. ‘I will tell you. You shall see what becomes of any poor devil who goes to demand money of me – of a man of science. Ha! ha! It pleases me. I was seven weeks perfecting my Dun Suppressor. Did you know’ – he whispered exultingly – ‘did you know that there is a hole through the earth’s center? Physicists have long suspected it; I was the first to find it. You have read how Huyghens [432], the Dutch navigator, discovered in Kerguellen’s Land [433]an abysmal pit which fourteen hundred fathoms of plumb-line failed to sound. Herr Tom, that hole has no bottom! It runs from one surface of the earth to the antipodal surface. It is diametric. But where is the antipodal spot? You stand upon it. I learned this by the merest chance. I was deep-digging in Mrs. Grimler’s cellar, to bury a poor cat I had sacrificed in a galvanic experiment, when the earth under my spade crumbled, caved in, and wonder-stricken I stood upon the brink of a yawning shaft. I dropped a coal-hod in. It went down, down, down, bounding and rebounding. In two hours and a quarter that coal-hod came up again. I caught it and restored it to the angry Grimler. Just think a minute. The coal-hod went down, faster and faster, till it reached the center of the earth. There it would stop, were it not for acquired momentum. Beyond the center its journey was relatively upward, toward the opposite surface of the globe. So, losing velocity, it went slower and slower till it reached that surface. Here it came to rest for a second and then fell back again, eight thousand odd miles, into my hands. Had I not interfered with it, it would have repeated its journey, time after time, each trip of shorter extent, like the diminishing oscillations of a pendulum, till it finally came to eternal rest at the center of the sphere. I am not slow to give a practical application to any such grand discovery. My Dun Suppressor was born of it. A trap, just outside my chamber door: a spring in here: a creditor on the trap: need I say more?’

‘But isn’t it a trifle inhuman?’ I mildly suggested. ‘Plunging an unhappy being into a perpetual journey to and from Kerguellen’s Land, without a moment’s warning.’

‘I give them a chance. When they come up the first time I wait at the mouth of the shaft with a rope in hand. If they are reasonable and will come to terms, I fling them the line. If they perish, ’tis their own fault. Only,’ he added, with a melancholy smile, ‘the center is getting so plugged up with creditors that I am afraid there soon will be no choice whatever for ’em.’

By this time I had conceived a high opinion of my tutor’s ability. If anybody could send me waltzing through space at an infinite speed, Rivarol could do it. I filled my pipe and told him the story. He heard with grave and patient attention. Then, for full half an hour, he whiffed away in silence. Finally he spoke.

‘The ancient cipher has overreached himself. He has given you a choice of two problems, both of which he deems insoluble. Neither of them is insoluble. The only gleam of intelligence Old Cotangent showed was when he said that squaring the circle was too easy. He was right. It would have given you your Liebchen [434]in five minutes. I squared the circle before I discarded pantalets. I will show you the work – but it would be a digression, and you are in no mood for digressions. Our first chance, therefore, lies in perpetual motion. Now, my good friend, I will frankly tell you that, although I have compassed this interesting problem, I do not choose to use it in your behalf. I too, Herr Tom, have a heart. The loveliest of her sex frowns upon me. Her somewhat mature charms are not for Jean Marie Rivarol. She has cruelly said that her years demand of me filial rather than connubial regard. Is love a matter of years or of eternity? This question did I put to the cold, yet lovely Jocasta.’

‘Jocasta Surd!’ I remarked in surprise, ‘Abscissa’s aunt!’

‘The same,’ he said, sadly. ‘I will not attempt to conceal that upon the maiden Jocasta my maiden heart has been bestowed. Give me your hand, my nephew in affliction as in affection!’

Rivarol dashed away a not discreditable tear, and resumed:

‘My only hope lies in this discovery of perpetual motion. It will give me the fame, the wealth. Can Jocasta refuse these? If she can, there is only the trap-door and – Kerguellen’s Land!’

I bashfully asked to see the perpetual-motion machine. My uncle in affliction shook his head.

‘At another time,’ he said. ‘Suffice it at present to say, that it is something upon the principle of a woman’s tongue. But you see now why we must turn in your case to the alternative condition – infinite speed. There are several ways in which this may be accomplished, theoretically. By the lever, for instance. Imagine a lever with a very long and a very short arm. Apply power to the shorter arm which will move it with great velocity. The end of the long arm will move much faster. Now keep shortening the short arm and lengthening the long one, and as you approach infinity in their difference of length, you approach infinity in the speed of the long arm. It would be difficult to demonstrate this practically to the professor. We must seek another solution. Jean Marie will meditate. Come to me in a fortnight. Good-night. But stop! Have you the money – das Geld?’

‘Much more than I need.’

‘Good! Let us strike hands. Gold and Knowledge; Science and Love. What may not such a partnership achieve? We go to conquer thee, Abscissa. Vorwärts! [435] ’

When, at the end of a fortnight; I sought Rivarol’s chamber, I passed with some little trepidation over the terminus of the Air Line to Kerguellen’s Land, and evaded the extended arms of the Petty Cash Adjuster. Rivarol drew a mug of ale for me, and filled himself a retort of his own peculiar beverage.

‘Come,’ he said at length. ‘Let us drink success to the TACHYPOMP.’

‘The TACHYPOMP?’

‘Yes. Why not? Tachu , quickly, and pempo, pepompa, to send. May it send you quickly to your wedding-day. Abscissa is yours. It is done. When shall we start for the prairies?’

‘Where is it?’ I asked, looking in vain around the room for any contrivance which might seem calculated to advance matrimonial prospects.

‘It is here,’ and he gave his forehead a significant tap. Then he held forth didactically.

‘There is force enough in existence to yield us a speed of sixty miles a minute, or even more. All we need is the knowledge how to combine and apply it. The wise man will not attempt to make some great force yield some great speed. He will keep adding the little force to the little force, making each little force yield its little speed, until an aggregate of little forces shall be a great force, yielding an aggregate of little speeds, a great speed. The difficulty is not in aggregating the forces; it lies in the corresponding aggregation of the speeds. One musket ball will go, say a mile. It is not hard to increase the force of muskets to a thousand, yet the thousand musket balls will go no farther, and no faster, than the one. You see, then, where our trouble lies. We cannot readily add speed to speed, as we add force to force. My discovery is simply the utilization of a principle which extorts an increment of speed from each increment of power. But this is the metaphysics of physics. Let us be practical or nothing.

‘When you have walked forward, on a moving train, from the rear car, toward the engine, did you ever think what you were really doing?’

‘Why, yes, I have generally been going to the smoking car to have a cigar.’