The Inventions of the Idiot

by John Kendrick Bangs

"Maybe she is flirting with somebody else," suggested the Poet. "My Muse does that occasionally."

"I doubt it," said the Idiot. "I haven't observed any other poet encroaching upon my particular province. Even you, good as you are, can't do it. But in any event I'm going to have a change. The day has gone by when a one-muse poet achieves greatness. I'm going to employ a half-dozen and try to corner the poetry market. Queer that in all these years that men have been writing poetry no one has thought of that. People get up grain corners, corners in railway stock, monopolies in gas and oil and everything else, about, but as yet no poet has cornered the market in his business."

"That's easily accounted for," said the Bibliomaniac. "The poet controls only his own work, and if he has any sense he doesn't want to monopolize that."

"That isn't my scheme at all," said the Idiot. "You have a monopoly of your own work always if you choose to avail yourself of it, and, as you say, a man would be crazy to do so. What I'd like to see established is a sort of Poetic Clearing-house Association. Supposing, for instance, that I opened an office in Wall Street—a Bank for Poets, in which all writers of verse could deposit their rhymes as they write them, and draw against them just as they do in ordinary banks with their money. It would be fine. Take a man like Swinburne, for instance, or our friend here. Our poet could take a sonnet he had written, endorse it, and put it in the bank. He'd be credited with one sonnet, and wouldn't have to bother his head about it afterwards. He could draw against it. If the Clearing-house company could dispose of it to a magazine his draft would be honored in cash to its full value, less discount charges, which would include postage and commissions to the company."

"And suppose the company failed to dispose of it?" suggested the Poet.

"They'd do just as ordinary banks do with checks—stamp it 'Not Good,'" said the Idiot. "That, however, wouldn't happen very often if the concern had an intelligent receiving-teller to detect counterfeits. If the receiving-teller were a man fit for the position and a poet brought in a quatrain with five lines in it, he could detect it at once and hand it back. So with comic poems. I might go there with a poem I thought was comic, and proceed to deposit it with the usual deposit slip. The teller would look at it a second, scrutinize the humor carefully, and then if it was not what I thought it, would stamp it 'Not Comic' or 'Counterfeit.' It is perfectly simple."

"Very simple," said Mr. Pedagog. "Though I should have used a synonym of simple to describe it. It's idiotic."

"That's what people said of Columbus's idea that he could discover America," said the Idiot. "Everything that doesn't have dollars slathered all over it in plain view is idiotic."

"The word slathered is new to me," said the School-master; "but I fancy I know what you mean."

"The word slathered may be new to you," said the Idiot, "but it is a good word. I have used it with great effect several times. Whenever any one asks me that foolish question that is asked so often, 'What is the good word?' I always reply 'Slathered,' and the what's-the-good-word fiend goes off hurt in his mind. He doesn't know what I mean any more than I do, but it shuts him up completely, which is just so much gained."