"'AN ELECTRIC NOTICE TO QUIT'"
"With the result that I had to buy a new pair of pruning-shears," said the Idiot. "My Anti-Over-the-Fence-Gabber," he continued, "would involve certain complex details, but it would work. I should have an electric battery connected with the upper cable of the fence, and an operator stationed inside of the house, close to a key which would send some six hundred or seven hundred volts through the cable whenever needed. Then if I felt that Jimpsonberry's man was interfering with my laundress, as soon as he leaned over the fence I'd have the operator send him an electric notice to quit."
"A message?" said Mr. Pedagog.
"No, a plain shock. Two hundred volts as a starter, three hundred as a reminder, and the full seven hundred if necessary to make the hint plainer."
"That would be cruel," observed Mrs. Pedagog.
"Not wholly," said the Idiot. "It would be an advantage to the man himself in one way. Hired men have too little electricity in their systems, Mrs. Pedagog. If Jimpsonberry's man, for instance, would take all the electricity I'd give him and apply it to his work, Jimpsonberry's unpulled dandelions would not be such a constant menace to my lawn. I compel Mike to weed out my lawn every spring and autumn, but Jimpsonberry doesn't attend to his at all. He doesn't sleep on it, and so doesn't bother about it. Consequently, when his dandelions go to seed the seed is blown over into my grass, and every year I get an uninvited crop, which at a dollar a thousand would make me a millionaire."
"Why don't you apply your inventive genius to the discovery of a seedless dandelion?" asked the Lawyer. "It seems to me that would be the best solution of the dandelion problem."
"Because Jimpsonberry wouldn't have 'em if I discovered 'em," said the Idiot. "I judge from the millions he raises every year that he is satisfied with dandelions as they are. He's got enough for himself, and never makes any charge for those he gives to his neighbors."
"I think a furnace-feeder would be a good thing, too," the Idiot continued, in a moment. "My furnace is a chronic sufferer from indigestion because on some days it is gorged with coal and on others with ashes. Seems to me if I could get a month's time in which to concentrate my attention upon a furnace-feeder, I could devise some kind of a contraption that would invoke the enthusiastic love of the suburban resident in Arctic latitudes the world over."
"I have often thought of that possibility myself," observed Mr. Pedagog, his eyes fondly resting upon a steaming plate of griddle-cakes that had just been brought in. "But coal is a rebellious quantity. A furnace-feeder would need to be delicately adjusted, and coal cannot be handled with delicacy. It requires a chute rather than a tube. It must be manipulated with the shovel, not the sugar-tongs."