The eventful day arrived; the learned gentleman, honest Rick at his heels, took his way to the ancient Rathhaus, the gloomy aspect of whose exterior, with its narrow, barred, windowy and high-pitched roof under the eaves of which were many a row of wolves’ heads now dried into mummies, should have thrilled with apprehension the heart of the 36 least imaginative dog. But Rick, poor innocent, trotted through the portals as he would have trotted into the confectioner’s, and curled himself up for a nap at the feet of his counsel.
His affection for the accused, and the sympathy of the large audience assembled to hear his pleading, inspired the learned gentleman with unwonted eloquence. The only creature unconcerned was Rick, who, having finished his nap, thought it a fitting occasion to make a little excursion into the next canton.
After a brilliant peroration in which he dilated on the fidelity of the accused, who, he asserted, never left the Hotel Belvedere except in company with some of the guests, Rick’s advocate wound up with these words: “Behold at my feet the Tiger Hund!” But, alas! Rick was not at his feet, nor could he be found in any of his usual haunts, though eager searchers beat the precincts for him. And so, through Rick’s own fault, his case was lost and his friends put to open shame. Sentence of death was passed in the absence of the culprit, and things for a time looked black for Rick. Strenuous efforts, however, were made to secure a pardon; and finally, after the presentation of a petition pleading for mercy, numerously signed by the foreign and native residents, the magistrate was induced to commute the sentence to muzzlement for life. I cannot myself believe that Rick had the courage to attack a sheep, even in company. I know that his first meeting with a donkey threw him into such fits of terror that his reason was despaired of for days.
THE EDGE OF THE FUTURE.
UNSOLVED PROBLEMS THAT EDISON IS STUDYING.
By E. J. Edwards.
I.
Thomas A. Edison, when he was congratulated upon his forty-sixth birthday, declared that he did not measure his life by years, but by achievements or by campaigns; and he then confessed that he had planned ahead many campaigns, and that he looks forward to no period of rest, believing that for him, at least, the happiest life is a life of work. In speaking of his campaigns Mr. Edison said: “I do not regard myself as a pure scientist, as so many persons have insisted that I am. I do not search for the laws of nature, and have made no great discoveries of such laws. I do not study science as Newton and Kepler and Faraday and Henry studied it, simply for the purpose of learning truth. I am only a professional inventor. My studies and experiments have been conducted entirely with the object of inventing that which will have commercial utility. I suppose I might be called a scientific inventor, as distinguished from a mechanical inventor, although really there is no distinction.”