edy would be shoved off the
stage. There are enough people in the world now, without man's adding
all future generations to their number and making death an
impossibility."

"That's all nonsense," said the Idiot. "My Elixir wouldn't make death an
impossibility. Any man who thought he'd had enough at the end of a
thousand years could stop taking the Elixir and shuffle off the mortal
coil. As a matter of fact, not more than ten per cent. of the people in
the world would have any faith in the Elixir at all. I know people
to-day who do not take advantage of the many patent remedies that are
within their reach, preferring the mustard-plaster and catnip-tea of
their forefathers. There's where human nature works again. I believe
that if I were myself the discoverer of the formula for my mixture, and
for an advertisement secured a letter from a man saying, 'I was dying of
old age, having reached the advanced period of ninety-seven; I took two
bottles of your Electrical Elixir and am now celebrating my
twenty-fifth birthday again,' ninety-nine per cent. of the people who
read it would laugh and think it had strayed out of the funny column.
People lack confidence in their fellow-men--that's all; but if they were
twenty-five and eighteen that would all be changed. We are very trustful
at twenty-five and eighteen, which is one of the things I like about
those respective ages. When I was twenty-five I believed in everybody,
including myself. Now--well, I'm older. But enough of schemes, which I
must admit are somewhat visionary--as the telephone would have seemed
one hundred years ago. Let us come down to realities in electricity. I
can't see why more is not made of the phonograph for the benefit of the
public. Take a man like Chauncey M. De Choate. He goes here and he goes
there to make speeches, when I've no doubt he'd much prefer to stay at
home cutting coupons off his bonds. Why can't the phonograph voice do
_his_ duty? Instead of making the same speech over and over again, why
can't some electrician so improve the phonograph that De Choate can say
what he has to say through a funnel, have it impressed on a cylinder,
duplicated and reduplicated and scattered broadcast over the world? If
Mr. Edison could impart what poets call stentorian tones to the
phonograph, he'd be doing a great and noble work. Again, for smaller
things, like a dance, Why can't the phonograph be made useful at a ball?
I attended one the other night, and when