The Inventions of the Idiot

by John Kendrick Bangs

"That wouldn't interfere with its circulation," returned the Idiot. "It's a poor tramp who can't steal. Every suburban resident in creation would buy a copy of the book out of sheer curiosity. I'd get my royalties from them; the tramps could get the books by helping themselves to the suburbanites' copies as they do to chickens, fire-wood, and pies put out to cool. As for the beggars, I'd have it put into their hands by the people they beg from. When a man comes up to a wayfarer, for instance, and says, 'Excuse me, sir, but could you spare a nickel to a hungry man?' I'd have the wayfarer say, 'Excuse me, sir, but unfortunately I have left my nickels in my other vest; but here is a copy of the Idiot's Mendicancy Made Easy, or the Beggar's Don't.'"

"And you think the beggar would read it, do you?" asked the Bibliomaniac.

"I don't know whether he would or not. He'd probably either read it or pawn it," the Idiot answered. "In either event he would be better off, and I would have got my ten per cent. royalty on the book. After the Beggars' Manual I should continue my good work if I found the class for whom it was written had benefited by my first effort. I should compile as my contribution to the literature of mendicancy for the following season what I should call The Beggar's Élite Directory. This would enlarge my sphere a trifle. It would contain as complete lists as could be obtained of persons who give to street beggars, with their addresses, so that the beggars, instead of infesting the streets at night might go to the houses of these people and collect their incomes in a more business-like and less undignified fashion. Added to this would be two lists, one for tramps, stating what families in the suburbs kept dogs, what families gave, whether what they gave was digestible or not, rounding up with a list of those who do not give, and who have telephone connection with the police station. This would enable them to avoid dogs and rebuffs, would save the tramp the time he expends on futile efforts to find work he doesn't want, and as for the people who have to keep the dogs to ward off the tramps, they, too, would be benefited, because the tramps would begin to avoid them, and in a short while they would be able to dispense with the dogs. The other list would be for organ-grinders, who are, after all, only beggars of a different type. This list would comprise the names of persons who are musical and who would rather pay a quarter than listen to a hand-organ. By a judicious arrangement with these people, carried on by correspondence, the organ-grinder would be able to collect a large revenue without venturing out, except occasionally to play before the house of a delinquent subscriber in order to remind him that he had let his contract expire. So, by slow degrees, we should find beggars doing their work privately and not publicly, tramps circulating only among those whose sympathies they have aroused, and organ-grinding only a memory."

"The last, I think, would not come about," said Mr. Pedagog. "For there are people who like the music of hand-organs."

"True—I'm one of 'em. I'd hire a hansom to follow a piano-organ about the city if I could afford it, but as a rule the hand-organ lovers are of the one-cent class," returned the Idiot. "The quarter class are people who would rather not hear the hand-organ, and it is to them that a grinder of business capacity would naturally address himself. It is far pleasanter to stay at home and be paid large money for doing nothing than to undertake a weary march through the city to receive small sums for doing something. That's human nature, Mr. Pedagog."

"I presume it is," said Mr. Pedagog; "but I don't think your scheme is. Human nature works, but your plan wouldn't."

"Well, of course," said the Idiot, "you never can tell about ideals. The fact that an ideal is ideal is the chief argument against its amounting to much. But I am confident that if my Beggar's Don't and Élite Directory fail, my other book will go."

"You appear to have the writing of a library in mind," sneered the Bibliomaniac.

"I have," said the Idiot. "If I write all the books I have in mind, the public library will be a small affair beside mine."

"And your other book is to be what?" queried Mr. Whitechoker.