As the traveler, turning his back to the setting sun, descends into Paradise Valley, there spreads before him a brilliant checker-board of orchard and vineyard. Beyond this an extensive and picturesque group of red buildings gleams still ruddier, and upon one corner of the roof of the principal structure a small house of glass glistens like a huge jewel in the sunset glow. Approaching nearer, the buildings are seen to be surrounded by parks and gardens, where men and women are amusing themselves with golf and baseball, croquet and tennis, under the watchful eyes of discreet attendants.
Here is the home of many a human wreck, cast upon the shores of mental oblivion in the strenuous struggle of life—the man who, during the gold fever of '49, found fortune to lose all else, he who sacrificed everything and gained nothing, and hundreds of others, men and women, who have proved unequal to the strain on nerve and brain imposed by the stress of an unkindly Fate.
Walking apart from these groups may be seen a white-haired man of melancholy mien, who pauses occasionally and makes a peculiar motion with his hands, as if in the act of cutting with an imaginary pocket knife. This man is the sole occupant of the glass house on the roof, which is always brilliantly lighted, blazing all night with electric lamps. At intervals of a few months, he is visited by two ladies, who seem extremely solicitous for his welfare, and twice a year a noted alienist from Paris comes to study this interesting case. Here is the story of this peculiar patient:
Anyone with a sweet tooth and a good memory will recall the curious little pear-shaped sweetmeats which were so popular thirty years ago and then suddenly dropped out of sight. Everyone bought and talked of the new candy, which was small, apple-green and translucent, with a curious red streak in the core. It was not only very delicious to the taste, but produced a strange effect of mental and physical stimulation, of buoyancy—almost of intoxication. Totally different from the action of any known drug, however, and especially from alcohol, it had absolutely no deleterious reaction, but on the contrary seemed to exercise a tonic influence upon the nervous system. Joy Drops, as they were called, were carried in school-children's satchels, sold on trains, taken as a "pick-me-up" by men, ordered by society ladies for their "functions" and consumed by shop-girls by the ton.
The enormous profits from their sales were not divided among shareholders, but all went to one man, Walter H. Torreton, the inventor and manufacturer, who, starting in a small way, had constantly increased his business and incidentally the fame of the Lake city where he lived. There he bought the handsomest estate on Park Avenue and built extensive conservatories, giving much personal attention to a unique species of lily, which had never before been seen, called by him the multi-bloom.
As the fame of Torreton's confectionery spread, other manufacturers put imitations on the market, but without success. Though their candy looked much the same, it wholly lacked the peculiar qualities of the genuine Joy Drops, in which analysis had failed to reveal anything more than sugar, a little fruit flavoring and the merest trace of some quite unknown but very volatile essence, which appeared to be located in the red central stripe.
Torreton received large offers for the use of his secret formula, but these he promptly declined, and went on enlarging his business. Then his competitors began a systematic endeavor to steal what they could not buy. Information was lodged with the internal revenue officers that the candy contained alcohol, but this was disproved by the government analysis, which, however, utterly failed to show the nature of the characteristic ingredient. Torreton often found spy-glasses and cameras levelled upon his laboratory windows from buildings across the way. Repeated attempts were made to bribe his workmen, but they only served to bring out the fact that no one knew the secret but Torreton himself. Then complaint was brought against him for violating the fire regulations, and among the inspectors who came when an investigation was ordered he recognized a chemist from Chicago. But even this spy, after gaining access to the citadel, and peering and sniffing about the premises, could find no clue but a strange aroma which he could not identify. Some express packages which arrived at the factory were traced back to Amsterdam, where, after a tedious search, it was found that they had been originally shipped across the ocean by Torreton himself, merely as a blind. When it seemed as if persecution and inquisition could go no further, the inventor, one evening on leaving the factory, discovered a small balloon anchored over his laboratory skylight!
Not long after this, a real estate firm, acting, it was surmised, for a foreign syndicate, bought a vacant tract of land on the outskirts, commonly known as Sumach Park. On the high ground in the centre a large brick building was erected and enclosed by a high brick wall like those which give privacy to many English estates. The building itself was surmounted by a glass structure, somewhat like the lantern of a lighthouse, and was the cause of much curiosity. This curiosity was partially gratified eventually, and the story of a foreign syndicate shattered by the following notice, which appeared one evening in all the papers:
ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD will be paid by the undersigned to the person who first brings news to his residence on Park Avenue that the electric light has gone out in the cupola of the new Torreton Confectionery Works, in Sumach Park.
Walter H. Torreton.