When Rogues Fall Out by R.Austin Freeman

Author:R.Austin Freeman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: When Rogues Fall Out
ISBN: 9780755128853
Publisher: House of Stratus
Published: 2012-12-22T00:00:00+00:00

Book III

The Missing Collector

Chapter Ten

Mr Woodburn’s Story

Inventors are a much-misunderstood class. The common man, in his vanity and egotism, supposes that they exist to supply him with various commodities of which he dimly perceives the need. But this is an entirely mistaken view. The inventor produces his invention because, in the existing circumstances, it has become possible. It is true that he, himself, tends to confuse the issues by persuading himself optimistically that his invention has a real and important utility. His inventive mind goes so far as to create an imaginary consumer, so that he sees life in a somewhat false perspective. The genius who devised a family Bible which could be opened out to form a billiard table, no doubt envisaged a pious type of player who had need of some means of combining the canon of scripture with a canon off the red; while, to the inventor of a supermagic-lantern which could throw pictures on the clouds, the night sky was no more than a suitable background on which to declare the glory of Blunt’s Milky Toffee.

But this is mere self-delusion. In reality, the inventor is concerned with his invention. Its use is but a side issue which hovers vaguely on the periphery of his mental field of vision. I emphasise the fact, because it has a bearing on the events which I am recording. For our invaluable laboratory assistant, Polton, was an inveterate inventor, and, being also an accomplished and versatile craftsman, was able to turn out his inventions in a completely realised form.

So it happened that a certain large cupboard in the laboratory was a veritable museum of the products of his inventive genius and manual skill; examples of ingenuity – sometimes fantastically misguided – the utility of which he would expound to Thorndyke and me with pathetic earnestness and appeals to “give them a trial.” There were spectacles which enabled the wearer to see behind him, there was a periscope walking-stick with which you could see round a corner, a large pedometer with movable dials for metres and yards and a micrometer adjustment of impracticable accuracy, and all sorts of clockwork devices and appliances for out-of-the-way photographic operations. But optical instruments were his special passion, whence it followed that most of his inventions took an optical turn.

I am afraid that I did not treat these children of Polton’s imagination with the respect that they deserved. Thorndyke, on the other hand, made a point of always examining even the wildest flights of the inventor’s fancy with appreciative attention, realizing – and pointing out to me – that their apparent oddity was really due to the absence of appropriate circumstances, and that those circumstances might arise at any moment and give an unexpected value to what seemed to be a mere toy. And that was what happened on the present occasion. One of Polton’s most eccentric productions suddenly revealed itself as an invaluable instrument of research. But perhaps I am beginning the story at the wrong end.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.