THE RIVAL EDITORS
The following story was related to me by a professional liar, and yet I have suspicions that it is not true in every detail; but I feel sure that some variant of it has been true more than once, with the exception of the aerial incident.
A certain inventor had invented one of the very often-invented high explosive compounds of chlorate of potash, sulphur, charcoal, paraffin wax, etc., thinking that he had made a great discovery.
Now it happens that there is so much erraticism about high explosive mixtures with chlorate of potash as a base that the pathway of invention of such compounds has been strewn with the wreckage of the hopes and anatomy of their inventors.
The inventor had enlisted the financial support of a promoter, and the promoter was endeavoring to enlist financial support for himself, and to that end had invited several men of means, with two rival newspaper editors of the place, to witness a demonstration of the explosive at the inventor’s laboratory, which was a two-story, light frame structure.
The promoter was letting himself be interviewed by the two editors and other newspaper reporters on the upper floor, while the inventor was making a demonstration with some of the stuff on the lower floor, the prospective investors warily watching the proceedings from a respectful distance.
The inventor had about half a barrel of the stuff in a tub. He first took a portion of it and pounded it on an anvil to show that it would not explode from shock. Next he took a handful of it and threw it into the fire under the boiler, to show that it would not explode from mere ignition. He then took a hot iron, which he had brought to a white heat in a forge, and thrust it into the half barrel of the infernal mixture, to show that it simply could not be exploded except with a very powerful exploder or detonator.
But the mixture happened, on that occasion, to differ somewhat from the inventor with respect to the sequence of eventuations—and exploded.
The building went up, and the promoter, the two editors and the reporters on the upper floor accompanied the building.
Two of the newspaper men were great rivals. One of them was the editor of the Clarion and the other the editor of the Echo. It so happened that the Clarion had better facilities for getting telegraphic news than the Echo, and accordingly the Clarion was usually able to post its news in advance of the Echo, and the editor of the Clarion used often to chaff his rival with the remark, “It’s no use to put up your poster now, for my poster of the same news is just coming down.” He called the Echo the echo of the Clarion.
When the explosion occurred, the editor of the Clarion, being more directly over the explosive than was the editor of the Echo, went up farther and faster, and on his return met the editor of the Echo still going up, and called out to him, “Behind as usual! All of the other fellows are coming down.”