The Doctor was serious. His high voice was calm, and he smoked a while in peace. “But,” he added reflectively–“Cap, I want to tell you something more wonderful than all; I’ve seen seven absolutely honest men elected this year to the State Senate–I’ve sounded them, felt them out, had all kinds of reports from all kinds of people on those seven men. Each man thinks he’s alone, and there are seven.”
The Doctor leaned over to the Captain and said confidentially, “Cap–we meet next week. Listen here. I was elected without a dollar of the old spider’s money. He fought me for that smelter law on the quiet. Now look here; you watch my smoke. I’m going to organize those seven, and make eight and you’re going to see some fighting.”
“You ain’t going to fight the party, are you, Doc?” asked the amazed Captain, as though he feared that the Doctor would fall dead if he answered yes. But the Doctor grinned and said: “Maybe–if it fights me.”
“Well, Doc–” cried the Captain, “don’t you think–”
“You bet I think–that’s what’s the matter. The smelter lawsuit’s made me think. They want to control government so they can have a license to murder. That’s what it means. Watch ’em blight Denny Hogan’s lungs down on the dump; watch ’em burn ’em up and crush ’em in the mines–by evading the mining laws; watch ’em slaughter ’em on the railroads; murder is cheap in this country–if you control government and get a slaughter license.”
The Doctor laughed. “That’s the old century–and say, Cap–I’m with the new. You know old Browning–he says:
“It makes me mad
To think what men will do an’ I am dead.”
The Doctor waved his cane furiously, and grinned as he threw back his head, laughed silently, kicked out one leg, and stood with one eye cocked, looking at the speechless Captain. “Well, Cap–speak up–what are you going to do about it?”
“’Y gory, Doc, you certainly do talk like a Populist–eh?” was all the Captain could reply. The Doctor toddled to the 348door, and standing there sang back: “Well, Cap–do you think the Lord Almighty laid off all the angels and quit work on the world when he invented Tom Van Dorn’s automobile–that it is the last new thing that will ever be tried?”
And with that, the Doctor went out into the alley and through his alley gate into his house. But the Captain’s mind was set going by the Doctor’s parting words. He was considering what might follow the invention of Tom Van Dorn’s automobile. There was that chain, and there was his sprocket. It would work–he knew it would work and save much power and much noise. But the sprocket must be longer, and stronger. Then, he thought, if the wire spokes and the ball-bearing and rubber tires of the bicycle had made the automobile possible, and now that they were getting the gasoline engine of the automobile perfected so that it would generate such vast power in such a small space–what if they could conserve and apply that power through his invention–what if the gasoline engine might not through his Household Horse some day generate and use a power that would lift a man off the earth? What then? As he tapped the bolts and turned the screws and put his little device together, he dreamed big dreams of the future when men should fly, and the boundaries of nations would disappear and tariffs would be impossible. This shocked him, and he tried to figure out how to prevent smuggling by flying machines; but as he could not, he dreamed on about the time when war would be abolished among civilized men, because of his invention.