by Jerry
As I put her wraps around her and drew her arm through mine she murmured so sweetly, ‘Thank you, dear.’ How glad I was to get out of the presence of that vile man who was constantly pulling or pushing her; I could scarcely keep my hands off from him, and my serene Margurette—for I decided to call her that—would only smile and say, ‘Thank you!’
‘Oh, how lovely!’
‘Ah, indeed!’ I was almost vexed with her to think she did not resent it. I wanted her all to myself where I could have the smiles, and thought I should be thankful when we were in our own home.
During our journey I could not help noticing the admiring glances from my fellow travellers, but my beautiful wife did not return any of their looks. In fact, I overheard a couple of young dudes say, ‘Just wait till that old codger’s back is turned, and we shall see whether she will have no smiles for any but him.’ I had half a notion to adjust her to give them some cutting reply and then go into the smoker awhile, for I was sure they would try to get into conversation with her; but pshaw! I hadn’t ordered any tubes of that kind. I believed I’d send and get one in case of an emergency. No, I wouldn’t have such in the house; I wanted an amiable wife, and when we were once at home it would not be necessary. I wouldn’t have to go with her anywhere unless I wanted to. Only think of that!—never feel that my wife would ask me to go with her and I have to refuse, then ten to one have her cry and make a fuss about it. I knew how it was, for I had seen too much of that sort of thing in the homes of my friends.
Business ran smoothly; everything was perfect harmony; my home was heaven on earth. I smoked when I wished to, I went to my base-ball games, I stayed out as long as I pleased, played cards when I wished, drank champagne or whatever I fancied, in fact had as good a time as I did before marriage. My male friends congratulated me upon my good fortune, and I was considered the luckiest man anywhere around. No one knew how I had made the good luck for myself
There are some things in life I could never understand. One of them is that, when everything seems so prosperous, calamity is so often in the wake. And that was the case with me. After so many prosperous years a financial crash came. I tried to ward it off; I was up early and late. Margurette never complained, but was always sweet and smiling, with the same endearing words. Sometimes as the years went by I felt as though I would not object to her differing with me a little, for variety’s sake; still, it was best. When I would say, ‘Margurette, do you really think so?’ and I would speak so cross to her often—I don’t know but that I did so more than was necessary; still, a man must have some place where he can be himself, and if he can’t have that privilege at home, what’s the use of having a home? But she was never out of patience, and my wife would only say, ‘Yes, darling,’ so low and sweet. I remember once I said, when I was worried more than usual, ‘I am damned tired of this sort of thing,’ and she laughed so sweetly and called me her ‘own precious boy’.
But the crash came, and there was no use trying to stay it any longer. I came home sick and tired. It was nine o’clock at night, with a cold, drizzling rain falling. Susan had gone to bed sick, and forgotten to light a fire in the grate. I went into the library, where Margurette always waited for me. No lights; I stumbled over a chair.
I accidentally touched Margurette. She put up her lips to kiss me and laughingly said, ‘Precious darling, tired tonight?’ Great God! I came very near striking her.
‘Margurette, don’t call me darling; talk to me; talk to me about something—anything sensible. Don’t you know I am a ruined man? Everything I have got has been swept away from me.’
‘There, precious, I love you;’ and she laughed again.
‘Did you not hear what I said?’ I screamed.
But she only laughed the more and said, ‘Oh, how lovely!’
I rushed from the house. I could not endure it longer; I was like one mad. My first thought was: Where can I go, to whom can I go for sympathy? I cannot stand this strain much longer, and to show weakness to men I could never do that. I will go to Florence, I said. I will see what she says. Strange I should think of her just then!
I asked the servant who admitted me for Miss Florence.
‘She is indisposed and cannot see anyone tonight.’
‘But,’ I said, writing on a card hastily, ‘take this to her.’
Only a few moments elapsed and she came in, holding out her hand in an assuring and friendly way. ‘I am surprised to see you tonight, Mr Fitzsimmons.’
‘Oh, Florence!’ I cried, ‘I am in trouble. I believe I shall lose my mind if I cannot have someone to go to; and you, dear Florence, you will know my needs; you can counsel, you can understand me.’
‘Sir!’ Florence said, ‘are you mad, that you come here to insult me?’
‘But I love you. I know it. I love the traits that I once thought I despised.’
‘Stop where you are! I did not receive you to hear such language. You forget yourself and me; you forget that you are a married man—shame upon you for humiliating me so!’
‘Florence, Florence, I am not married; it is all a lie, a deception.’
‘Have you lost your reason, Mr Fitzsimmons? Sit down, pray, and let me call my father. You are ill.’
‘Stop,’ I cried, ‘I do not need your father. I need you. Listen to me. I imagined I could never be happy with a wife who differed in opinion from me. In fact, I had almost decided to remain single all the rest of my days, until I came across a man who manufactured wives to order. Wait, Florence, until I have finished—do not look at me so. I am indeed sane. My wife was manufactured to my own ideas, a perfect human being as I supposed.’
‘Mr Fitzsimmons, let me call my father.’ And Florence started towards the door. She was so pale that she frightened me, but I clutched her frantically.
‘Listen,’ I said; ‘will you go with me? I will prove that all I have told you is true.’
My earnestness seemed to reassure her. She stopped as if carefully thinking, then asked me to repeat what I had already told her. Finally she said yes, she would go.
We were soon in the presence of my beautiful Margurette. whom I literally hated—I could not endure her face. ‘Now, Florence, see,’ I cried; and I had my wife talk the namby-pamby lingo I once thought so sweet. ‘Oh! how I hate her!’ and I glared at her like a madman. ‘Florence, save me. I am a ruined man. Everything has been swept away—the last today. I am a pauper, an egotist, a bigot, a selfish—’
‘Stop!’ cried Florence. ‘You wrong yourself; you are a man in your prime. What if your money has gone, you have your health and your faculties, I guess’ (and there was a merry twinkle in her eyes); ‘the whole world is before you, and, best of all, no one to interfere with you or argue on disagreeable topics.’
‘Oh, Florence! I am punished enough for my selfishness. Oh, God!’ and I threw myself on the couch, ‘were I not a pauper, too, there might be some hope for happiness yet.’
‘You are not a pauper,’ said Florence; ‘you are the master of your fate, and if you are not happy it is your own fault.’
‘Florence, I can never be happy without you. I know now it is too late.’
‘Too late never say that. But could you be happy with me, “a woman wedded to an idea”, “strong-minded”? Why, Charles, I am liable to investigate all sorts of scientific subjects and reforms. And then supposing I should talk about it sometimes; if it was not for that I might think of the matter. As far as money is concerned, that would have little to do with my actions. Still, Charles, upon the whole I should be afraid to marry the “divorced” husband of so amiable a wife as your present one is. I, with my faults and imperfections! The contrast would be too great.’
‘Florence, Florence,’ I said, ‘say no more. All I ask is, can you overlook my folly and take me for better, for worse? I have learned my lesson. I see now it is only a petty and narrow type of man who would wish to live only with his own personal echo. I want a woman, one who retains her individuality, a thinking woman. Will you be mine?�
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‘I will consider the matter favourably,’ said Florence; ‘but we shall have to wait a year, for opinion’s sake, as I suppose there are not many who know how you had your late wife manufactured to order.’
And we both laughed.
AN EXPRESS OF THE FUTURE
Jules Verne
‘Take care!’ cried my conductor, ‘there’s a step!’
Safely descending the step thus indicated to me, I entered a vast room, illuminated by blinding electric reflectors, the sound of our feet alone breaking the solitude and silence of the place.
Where was I? What had I come there to do? Who was my mysterious guide? Questions unanswered. A long walk in the night, iron doors opened and reclosed with a clang, stairs descending, it seemed to me, deep into the earth—that is all I could remember. I had, however, no time for thinking.
‘No doubt you are asking yourself who I am?’ said my guide: ‘Colonel Pierce, at your service. Where are you? In America, at Boston—in a station.
‘A station?’
‘Yes, the starting-point of the “Boston to Liverpool Pneumatic Tubes Company”.’
And, with an explanatory gesture, the colonel pointed out to me two long iron cylinders, about a metre and a half in diameter, lying upon the ground a few paces off.
I looked at these two cylinders, ending on the right in a mass of masonry, and closed on the left with heavy metallic caps, from which a cluster of tubes were carried up to the roof; and suddenly I comprehended the purpose of all this.
Had I not, a short time before, read, in an American newspaper, an article describing this extraordinary project for linking Europe with the New World by means of two gigantic submarine tubes? An inventor had claimed to have accomplished the task; and that inventor, Colonel Pierce. I had before me.
In thought I realised the newspaper article.
Complaisantly the journalist entered into the details of the enterprise. He stated that more than 3,000 miles of iron tubes, weighing over 13,000. 000 tons, were required, with the number of ships necessary, for the transport of this material—200 ships of 2,000 tons, each making thirty-three voyages. He described this Armada of science bearing the steel to two special vessels, on board of which the ends of the tubes were joined to each other, and incased in a triple netting of iron, the whole covered with a resinous preparation to preserve it from the action of the seawater.
Coming at once to the question of working, he filled the tubes—transformed into a sort of pea-shooter of interminable length—with a series of carriages, to be carried with their travellers by powerful currents of air, in the same way that despatches are conveyed pneumatically round Paris.
A parallel with the railways closed the article, and the author enumerated with enthusiasm the advantages of the new and audacious system. According to him, there would be, in passing through these tubes, a suppression of all nervous trepidation, thanks to the interior surface being of finely polished steel; equality of temperature secured by means of currents of air, by which the heat could be modified according to the seasons; incredibly low fares, owing to the cheapness of construction and working expenses—forgetting, or waving aside, all considerations of the question of gravitation and of wear and tear.
All that now came back to my mind.
So, then, this ‘Utopia’ had become a reality, and these two cylinders of iron at my feet passed thence under the Atlantic and reached to the coast of England!
In spite of the evidence, I could not bring myself to believe in the thing having been done. That the tubes had been laid I could not doubt; but that men could travel by this route—never!
‘Was it not impossible even to obtain a current of air of that length?’—I expressed that opinion aloud.
‘Quite easy, on the contrary!’ protested Colonel Pierce; ‘to obtain it, all that is required is a great number of steam fans similar to those used in blast furnaces. The air is driven by them with a force which is practically unlimited, propelling it at the speed of 1,800 kilometres an hour—almost that of a cannon-ball!—so that our carriages with their travellers, in the space of two hours and forty minutes, accomplish the journey between Boston and Liverpool.’
‘Eighteen hundred kilometres an hour!’ I exclaimed.
‘Not one less. And what extraordinary consequences arise from such a rate of speed! The time at Liverpool being four hours and forty minutes in advance of ours, a traveller starting from Boston at nine o’clock in the morning, arrives in England at 3.54 in the afternoon. Isn’t that a journey quickly made? In another sense, on the contrary, our trains, in this latitude, gain over the sun more than 900 kilometres an hour, beating that planet hand over hand: quitting Liverpool at noon, for example, the traveller will reach the station where we now are at thirty-four minutes past nine in the morning—that is to say, earlier than he started! Ha! ha! I don’t think one can travel quicker than that!’
I did not know what to think. Was I talking with a madman?—or must I credit these fabulous theories, in spite of the objections which rose in my mind?
‘Very well, so be it!’ I said. ‘I will admit that travellers may take this mad-brained route, and that you can obtain this incredible speed. But, when you have got this speed, how do you check it? When you come to a stop, everything must be shattered to pieces!’
‘Not at all,’ replied the colonel, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Between our tubes—one for the out, the other for the home journey—consequently worked by currents going in opposite directions—a communication exists at every joint. When a train is approaching, an electric spark advertises us of the fact; left to itself, the train would continue its course by reason of the speed it had acquired; but, simply by the turning of a handle, we are able to let in the opposing current of compressed air from the parallel tube, and, little by little, reduce to nothing the final shock of stopping. But what is the use of all these explanations? Would not a trial be a hundred times better?’
And, without waiting for an answer to his questions, the colonel pulled sharply a bright brass knob projecting from the side of one of the tubes: a panel slid smoothly in its grooves, and in the opening left by its removal I perceived a row of seats, on each of which two persons might sit comfortably side by side.
‘The carriage!’ exclaimed the colonel. ‘Come in.’
I followed him without offering any objection, and the panel immediately slid back into its place.
By the light of an electric lamp in the roof I carefully examined the carriage I was in.
Nothing could be more simple: a long cylinder, comfortably upholstered, along which some fifty armchairs, in pairs, were ranged in twenty-five parallel ranks. At either end a valve regulated the atmospheric pressure, that at the farther end allowing breathable air to enter the carriage, that in front allowing for the discharge of any excess beyond a normal pressure.
After spending a few moments on this examination, I became impatient.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘are we not going to start?’
‘Going to start?’ cried the colonel. ‘We have started!’
Started—like that—without the least jerk, was it possible? I listened attentively, trying to detect a sound of some kind that might have guided me.
If we had really started—if the colonel had not deceived me in talking of a speed of 1,800 kilometres an hour—we must already be far from any land, under the sea; above our heads the huge, foam-crested waves; even at that moment, perhaps—taking it for a monstrous sea-serpent of an unknown kind—whales were battering with their powerful tails our long, iron prison!
But I heard nothing but a dull rumble, produced, no doubt, by the passage of our carriage, and, plunged in boundless astonishment, unable to believe in the reality of all that had happened to me, I sat silently, allowing the time to pass.
At the end of about an hour, a sense of freshness upon my forehead suddenly aroused me from the torpor into which I had sunk by degrees.
I raised my hand to my brow: it was moi
st.
Moist! Why was that? Had the tube burst under pressure of the waters—a pressure which could not but be formidable, since it increases at the rate of ‘an atmosphere’ every ten metres of depth? Had the ocean broken in upon us?
Fear seized upon me. Terrified, I tried to call out—and—and I found myself in my garden, generously sprinkled by a driving rain, the big drops of which had awakened me. I had simply fallen asleep while reading the article devoted by an American journalist to the fantastic projects of Colonel Pierce—who, also, I much fear, has only dreamed.
THE STAR
H.G. Wells
It was on the first day of the new year that the announcement was made, almost simultaneously from three observatories, that the motion of the planet Neptune, the outermost of all the planets that wheel about the sun, had become very erratic. Ogilvy had already called attention to a suspected retardation in its velocity in December. Such a piece of news was scarcely calculated to interest a world the greater portion of whose inhabitants were unaware of the existence of the planet Neptune, nor outside the astronomical profession did the subsequent discovery of a faint remote speck of light in the region of the perturbed planet cause any very great excitement. Scientific people, however, found the intelligence remarkable enough, even before it became known that the new body was rapidly growing larger and brighter, that its motion was quite different from the orderly progress of the planets, and that the deflection of Neptune and its satellite was becoming now of an unprecedented kind.