When I had read this letter, I sat for half an hour with it open in my
hands. It came upon me like a shower of iced water. I had supposed that
the spiritualists had utterly abandoned their endeavors to dematerialize
Mr. Kilbright. Therefore, the news of the revival of these criminal
intentions greatly shocked me. To be sure, the coming scientist might
have no such power as he pretended to possess, but this supposition did
not comfort me. If the man had not already had success in that sort of
thing it is not likely that he would come over here to attempt it now.

When I had sufficiently quieted my mental agitation I wrote instantly to
Mr. Corbridge, and in my letter I assumed a very confident tone. I told
him that Mr. Kilbright's circumstances had so changed that the intended
action of the spiritualists in regard to him was now rendered
impossible. He had become an active member of society, had gone into
business, and would be married in April. The mere statement of these
facts would, I felt quite certain--so I wrote--cause the spiritualists
to instantly relinquish all idea of carrying out their previous
intention in regard to this most estimable man. If, however, any inhuman
craving for scientific investigation should cause them to persist in
their cruel and criminal designs, the utmost power of the law should be
invoked against them. "To take away human life," I wrote, "in a case
like this is murder, no matter how it is done, and should you take away
Mr. Kilbright's life, or even attempt it, you shall be indicted and
punished for this cold-blooded and premeditated crime."

Before I had read this letter, I found it absolutely necessary for my
peace of mind that I should make my wife acquainted with the threatened
danger, and confer with her as to what it would be well to do. Of
course, Mrs. Colesworthy was greatly shocked when I read her Corbridge's
letter, but she recovered courage sooner than I had done.

"It's all stuff and nonsense," she said. "The man is just as much alive
as you and I are, and I don't believe any human power can turn him into
a spirit. They might kill him, but then he would be a dead man and not a
spiritual mist or vapor. I don't believe they even intend to try to do
anything of the kind. They merely wish you to hand him over to them so
they can make him work for them for little or no pay. They think, and
with good reason, too, that by this time you have taught him how to get
along at the present day, and that he may now be of some use to them."

I showed her the letter I had written, and she highly approved of it.
"If I were you," she said, "I would send that letter, and then I would
not do another thing. Take my word for it, you will never hear from
those people again."

We resolved, of course, that we would say nothing to Mr. Kilbright or
Lilian about this matter, for it was unwise to needlessly trouble their
minds; but we could not help talking about it a great deal ourselves. In
spite of the reassuring arguments which we continually thought of, or
spoke of to each other, we were troubled, anxious, and apprehensive.

"If we could only get them safely married," said Mrs. Colesworthy, "I
should feel at ease. Certainly those people would not do anything to him
then."

"I don't believe they can do anything to him at all," I answered. "But
how a marriage is going to protect him I cannot imagine."

"Of course, you can't explain such things," said my wife, "but I do
wish they were married and settled."

Not long after this she came to me with a supposition. "Supposing," she
said, "that those people find it impossible to dematerialize him, they
might do something which would be a great deal worse."

"What could that possibly be?" I asked.

"They might materialize his first wife," said she, "and could anything
be more dreadful than that? I suppose that woman lived to a good old
age, and to bring her forward now would be a height of cruelty of which
I believe those people to be fully capable."

"My dear," I exclaimed, "don't bring up any harrowing possibilities
which no one but yourself is likely to think of."

"I wish I could be sure of that," she said. "I have heard, but I don't
know how true it is, that spirits cannot be called up and materialized
unless somebody wants them, and I don't suppose there is anybody who
wants the first Mrs. Kilbright. But these men might so work on Mr.
Kilbright's mind as to make him think that he ought to want her."

I groaned. "Dear me!" I said. "I suppose if they did that they would
also bring up old Mr. Scott's mother, and then we should have a united
family."

"And a very funny one it would be," said my wife, smiling,
notwithstanding her fears, "for now I remember that old Mr. Scott told
me that his grandmother died before she was sixty, but that his mother
lived to be seventy-five. Now, he is eighty, if he is a day, so there
would be a regular gradation of ages in the family, only it would run
backward instead of in the usual way. But, thinking it over, I don't
believe the spiritualists will permanently bring up any more of that
family. If they did, they would have to support them, for they could not
ask old Mr. Scott to do it, who hasn't money enough to satisfy his
descendants, and ought not to be expected to support his ancestors."

My letter must have had a good deal of effect upon Mr. Corbridge, for in
less than a week after it was written he came into my office. He
informed me that he and his associates were about to give a series of
sГ©ances in our town, but that he had come on before the others in order
to talk to me. "I am extremely sorry," he said, "to hear of this
proposed marriage. We want to do what is right and fair, and we have no
desire that any act of ours shall create a widow."

"Then," I exclaimed, "you relinquish your design against Mr.
Kilbright?"

"Not at all," said he. "We shall carry out our plan before our subject
marries. If you choose to hurry up matters and have the wedding take
place before we are ready to proceed with our dematerializing process,
we shall be very sorry, but the blame must rest on you. You should have
had consideration enough for all parties to prevent any such
complication as an engagement to marry. As to what you said in your
letter in regard to invoking the law against us, I attach no weight
whatever to that threat."

"You will find you have made a great mistake," said I, angrily, "when I
have brought the law to bear upon you, which now I shall not delay to
do."

"You will merely bring ridicule upon yourself," he said, "if you assert
that the man you wish to protect is Amos Kilbright. We can prove by
records, still to be seen in Bixbury, that said person died in seventeen
eighty-five. On the other hand, if you choose to assert that he is, or
was, anybody else, how are you going to prove it? All that you can say
is that the person you refer to came from, you knew not where, and has
gone, you know not where. If you declare that at one time he was a
materialized spirit, you know very well how such a statement as that
would be received in a court of law. It will be much wiser to let it be
supposed that the person who has lately been seen about this town has
run off to Canada, than to make any sort of legal inquiry into the
matter. If said person were really a man we could have nothing to do
with his disappearance, while if he were a materialized spirit the law
would have nothing to do with him."

I arose and paced the floor. There was entirely too much force in this
man's arguments, but, although I could not immediately answer him, his
cool determination to persevere in his iniquitous designs so angered me
that I declared that he should be punished if I had to do it myself.

"Then you admit," he said, with a smile, "that the law cannot do it. The
situation," he continued, "is very plain to us. Although the law can
take no cognizance of our action, the case will be very different with
all believers in spiritualism, and those who are interested in us. The
news that we have done this thing will spread through the spiritualistic
circles of the world."

"Has your German arrived?" I asked, abruptly.

"Not yet," answered Corbridge, "but we expect him in a few days. He
will come directly to this town, because we wish to give him an
opportunity of observing the subject in his present form before
beginning the dematerializing process."

"What refinement of cruelty!" I exclaimed.

"Oh, of course, the doctor will not make himself known," said Corbridge.
"He will merely wish to take a good look at the subject, and see for
himself how perfect his materialization has been. Then he will know just
what work is before him."

And, so saying, Mr. Corbridge went away, leaving me too angry to speak,
if, indeed, I could have thought of anything which it would have been
worth my while to say.

When Mrs. Colesworthy heard what Corbridge had said, she turned white.
"They must be married instantly!" she exclaimed. "I knew that was the
only way."

It was all very well to talk of an immediate marriage, but it was not so
easy to bring it about. It was yet a week before the day fixed for the
wedding, and the happy lovers were busy with their preparations, never
dreaming of the danger which hung over them. What reason could we give
for hastening the marriage rites? At one time we thought it might be
wise to explain to them fully the state of the case, but from this
course we were deterred for fear of the terrible effect that the news
might have on Lilian. Should she hear of the design of Dr. Hildstein,
she would never again have a moment's peace, married or unmarried. Once
I advised that the two be dissuaded from marrying, at least for a year.
In that time we could see if these people really had any power over Mr.
Kilbright.

"That will not do at all," said Mrs. Colesworthy. "It will be very long
to postpone their happiness; and besides, if that German gets hold of
Mr. Kilbright while he is still unmarried, he will snap him up, or
rather, blow him out in no time."

"I thought we had persuaded ourselves," I said, sadly, "that no one
could have any real power of dematerialization."

"So we had," said she, "but that sort of persuasion does not always
last."

The result was that we did nothing but hope for the best. But we could
not blame ourselves, for, really, there was nothing else to do. I had
given up all idea of endeavoring to put Mr. Corbridge and his associates
under legal restriction, because if they had power to do the evil we
feared, they could do it in one place as well as another, and no court
could determine when, how, or by whom Mr. Kilbright had been
dematerialized.

The day before the wedding-day the German doctor arrived in our town;
and, having heard this, I went immediately to the hotel where Mr.
Corbridge and his party were staying. The spiritualistic manager was not
glad to see me, and frankly said so.

"I had hoped," he remarked, "that you had concluded to keep out of this
thing. It is no concern of yours; you can be of no possible good to
anybody; and the wisest thing you can do will be to drop it."

I assured him that I had no intention of dropping it, and that I should
do everything in my power to protect Mr. Kilbright.

"Then, again," continued Corbridge, "there is really no need of giving
yourself all this worry. Dr. Hildstein may succeed, and he may not. We
have failed, and so may he. He has seen the subject, and has come to a
very philosophical and sensible conclusion in regard to him. He will not
believe, merely on our assertion, that the man is a materialized spirit.
He will proceed with his experiments, and if they fail he will consider
that the man is a man, and was never anything else. If they succeed,
then he will be quite satisfied that he had a perfect right to
dematerialize what we had materialized."

"Then you really believe," I said, "that there is a chance that he may
fail?"

"Of course there is," said Corbridge. "I do not know his methods, and
there may be nothing in them."

I had no doubt that this change of tone in Corbridge was intended to
produce in me a feeling of security, that they might thus rid themselves
of me. But, though I saw through his purpose, the man's words encouraged
me. Of course there must be a good deal of doubt about the German's
powers; and, after all, there might be no cause whatever for our
anxieties.

"Now, sir," said Corbridge, as I left, "if I were you I would trouble
myself no more about this matter. If Dr. Hildstein fails, you will still
have your man to do your copying, or your surveying, or anything you
like. If he succeeds, we are all in the same condition we were a year
ago. 'That subject did not exist at that time; he does not exist at this
time;' that will be all we shall have to say about it."

"You forget," I said, severely, "the wife he may leave behind him."

"I have nothing to say about that," said Corbridge, rather sharply. "It
is a reprehensible business, and I have nothing to do with it."

I went away without seeing the German doctor, but as I heard he spoke no
English, and as I did not know German, an interview with him would have
been of no avail.

Neither Mrs. Colesworthy nor myself slept that night; we were so filled
with anxious fears. But when the day broke, bright and clear, and I had
hurried round to Mr. Kilbright's lodgings, and had found him as full of
life and vigor as I had ever seen him, we were greatly comforted, and
ate our breakfasts with fair appetites.

"If it had been a dark and lowering day," said my wife, "I don't believe
I could have swallowed a mouthful."

The marriage was to take place at noon, and the happy pair were to start
by the first afternoon train for the sea-shore, where they were to spend
a week. Mr. Kilbright hated locomotives and railroads almost as much as
ever, but he had told me some time before that he intended to conquer
this prejudice, if such a thing were possible.

"Being one of you, I must do as you do," he had said.

The wedding was to be a very simple one. Miss Budworth was to go from
her mother's house to the church, where Mr. Kilbright was to meet her.
We insisted that he should dress at our house, where he would find
better accommodations than at his lodgings; and we assigned him our best
guest-room, where he repaired in very good season, to array himself in
his wedding suit.

It was not quite eleven o'clock when I went upstairs to see if I could
be of any use to Mr. Kilbright in regard to the conclusion of his
toilette. I knocked at the door, but received no answer. Waiting a few
moments, I opened it and entered. On the floor, in front of a tall
dressing-glass, was a suit of clothes. Not only did I see the black
broadcloth suit--not laid out at length, but all in a compact heap--but
I saw the shoes and stockings, the collar and cravat; everything. Near
by lay a whisk broom.

The truth was plain. While giving the last touches to his wedding
attire, all that was Amos Kilbright had utterly disappeared!

I stood where I had stopped, just inside the door, trembling, scarcely
breathing, so stunned by the terrible sight of those clothes that I
could not move, nor scarcely think. If I had seen his dead body there I
should have been shocked, but to see nothing! It was awful to such an
extent that my mind could not deal with it!

Presently I heard a step, and slightly turning, saw my wife close by me.
She had passed the open door, and seeing me standing as if stricken into
a statue, had entered.

It did not need that I should speak to her. Pale as a sheet she stood
beside me, her hand tightly grasping my arm, and with her lips pallid
with horror, she formed the words: "They have done it!"

In a few moments she pulled me gently back, and said, in quick, low
tones, as if we had been in presence of the dead: "In less than an hour
she will be at the church. We must not stay here."

With this she turned and stepped quickly from the room. I followed,
closing the door behind me.

Swiftly moving, and without a word, my wife put on her hat and left the
house. Mechanically I followed. I could speak no word of comfort to that
poor girl, at this moment the happiest of expectant brides. I knew that
I had not the power to even attempt to explain to her the nature of the
dreadful calamity that had fallen upon her. But I could not let my wife
go alone. She, indeed, must speak to Lilian, but there were other
members of the family; I might do something.

To my great surprise, Mrs. Colesworthy did not turn into the street
which led to the Budworths' house, but went straight on. I thought at
first she was going to the church to countermand the wedding
preparations. But before I could put a question to her she had gone
around a corner, and was hurrying up the steps of the principal hotel in
our town.

"Is Dr. Hildstein in?" she asked of the first person she met.

The man, gazing astonished at her pallid face, replied that he was, and
immediately conducted us to a little parlor on the first floor, the door
of which stood partly open. Without knocking, Mrs. Colesworthy hastily
entered, I closely following. A middle-aged man suddenly arose from a
small table at which he was sitting, and turning quickly toward us, made
an abrupt exclamation in German.

As I have said, I do not understand German, but Mrs. Colesworthy knows
the language well, and, stepping up to the man, she said (she afterward
told me the meaning of the words that passed between them): "Are you Dr.
Hildstein?"

"I am," he said, his face agitated by emotion, and his eyes sparkling,
"but I can see no one, speak to no one! I go out this moment to observe
the result of an important experiment!"

My wife motioned to me to close the door. "You need not go," she said,
"I can tell you that your experiment has succeeded. You have
dematerialized Mr. Kilbright. In one hour he was to be married to a
noble, loving woman; and now all that remains where he stood is a pile
of clothes!"

"Do you tell me that?" exclaimed the doctor, wildly seizing his hat.

"Stop!" cried Mrs. Colesworthy, her face glowing with excitement, her
eyes flashing, and her right arm extended. "Stir not one step! Do you
know what you have done?"

"I have done what I had a right to do!" exclaimed the doctor, almost in
a shout. "If he is gone he was nothing but a spirit. Tell me where--"

"I will tell you this!" exclaimed my wife. "He was a great deal more
than a spirit. He was a man engaged to be married at twelve o'clock this
day. You may think there is no law that will sweep down on you, but I
tell you there is; and before the clock strikes twelve you shall know
it. Do you imagine you have come upon a people who will endure the
presence of an ogre? a wretch, who reduces to nothing a fellow human
being, and calls it an experiment? When we tell what you have done--my
husband cannot speak German, but he is a leader in this town, and he
supports me in all I say--when we have told what you have done there
will be no need of courts, or judges, or lawyers for you. Like a wild
beast you will be hunted down; you will be trampled under foot; you will
be torn to pieces! Fire, the sword, the hangman's noose, clubs, and
crowbars will not be enough to satisfy the vengeance of an outraged
people upon a cold-blooded wretch who came to this country solely for
the purpose of perpetrating a crime more awful than anything that was
ever known before! Did you ever hear of lynching? I see by your face you
know what that means. You are in the midst of a people who, in ten short
minutes, will be shrieking for your blood!"

The man's face changed, and he looked anxiously at me. I did not know
what my wife had been saying, but I had seen by her manner that she had
been threatening him, and I shook my uplifted fist.

"Now heed what I say," cried Mrs. Colesworthy, "if you do not wish to
perish at the hands of an infuriated mob; to die a thousand deaths
before your vile spirit leaves this world, knowing that, besides the
torments you feel, and those which are to come, you will be in the power
of men who will bring you back in a half-finished form to make sport at
their meetings whenever they feel like it--"

Drops of perspiration stood on the doctor's face. "Stop that!" he
cried, throwing up his arm. "I cannot stand that! I did not know the
subject had such friends!"

"Nothing shall be stopped!" exclaimed my wife, "and everything shall
happen unless you immediately sit down at that table, or wherever you do
those things, and rematerialize Mr. Kilbright, just as you found him,
and into the very clothes that were left lying upon the floor!"

The doctor stepped forward--his face was now pale--and addressed himself
very deferentially to my wife, totally ignoring me. "If you will
retire," he said, "I will try; I swear to you that I will try."

"There is not a minute to be lost," said Mrs. Colesworthy, "not one
second. And, if as much as a finger-nail is missing, remember what I
have told you!"

And with this we quickly left the room.

As we went down the steps of the hotel Mrs. Colesworthy looked at her
watch. "It is twenty-five minutes to twelve," she said. "We must get
home as fast as we can."

We hurried along, sometimes almost running. When we reached our house,
Mrs. Colesworthy motioned to me to go upstairs. She had no breath left
with which to speak. I ran up, and stood for a moment at the closed door
of our guest-room. With my hand on the knob, I was unable to open it. I
heard a step on the stairs behind me, and I opened the door.

There stood Mr. Kilbright in his wedding clothes, with the whisk-broom
in his hand.

He turned at the sound of my entrance.

"Do you know," cried the cheery voice of my wife, from just outside the
door, "that we have barely fifteen minutes in which to get to the
church?"

"Can that be?" cried Mr. Kilbright. "The time has flown without my
knowing it. We must truly make haste!"

"Indeed we must," said Mrs. Colesworthy, and as she stepped back from
the door, she whispered in my ear: "Not a look, not a tremble to let him
know!"

In less than thirty seconds we were on our way to the church, in the
carriage which had been ordered for the purpose.

On the church porch we found old Mr. Scott. He was dressed in his best
clothes, and greeted us cordially. "In good time," he said. "I am glad
to see that. It promises well." And then, looking around to see that no
one was within hearing, he came nearer to us. "If I were you," he
continued, "I wouldn't say nothin' to folks in general about
relationships, for there are people, and very good people, too, whose
minds haven't got on far enough to make 'em able to understand
telephones and the other new kinds of wonders."

We acknowledged the force of his remarks, and all went into the church.

Three days after the departure of Mr. and Mrs. Kilbright on their
wedding tour, my wife received a letter from Dr. Hildstein, written by
himself from New York, but addressed in the handwriting of Mr.
Corbridge.

"I return," he wrote, "to Germany, perfectly happy in having succeeded
in my experiments; but nevermore, esteemed lady, will I dematerialize a
subject who has remained long enough in this world to make friends, and
I am the only man who can do this thing."

This letter greatly satisfied us. "It shows that he has some heart,
after all," said Mrs. Colesworthy, "but as to that man Corbridge, I
believe he would have kept poor Mr. Kilbright dancing backward and
forward between this world and the other as long as a dollar could be
made out of him. But there is only one way in which he can do us any
harm now, and that is by materializing the first Mrs. Kilbright; but,
knowing us, as he now does, I don't believe he will ever try that."

"No," said I, "I don't believe he ever will."

Should you ever meet with Mr. Amos Kilbright, you need not hesitate to
entrust him with any surveying you may have on hand. Mr. Corbridge
cannot dematerialize him, the German scientist will not, and there is no
one else in the world who would even think of such a thing. Therefore,
you need feel no fear that he may suddenly vanish from your sight,
leaving nothing behind him but his clothes and the contents of his
pockets; unless, indeed, he should again be so foolish as to go to swim
in the ocean at a point where there is a strong ebb tide.




THE REVERSIBLE LANDSCAPE.


To look at me no one would suppose it; but it is, nevertheless, a fact
that I am a member of a fire company. I am somewhat middle-aged,
somewhat stout, and, at certain times of the year, somewhat stiff in the
joints; and my general dress and demeanor, that of a sober business man,
would not at all suggest the active and impetuous fireman of the period.
I do not belong to any paid department, but to a volunteer Hook and
Ladder Company, composed of the active-bodied or active-minded male
citizens of the country town where I live. I am included in the
active-minded portion of the company; and in an organization like ours,
which is not only intended to assist in putting out the fires of burning
buildings, but to light the torch of the mind, this sort of member is
very valuable. In the building which we occupy, our truck, with its
hooks and ladders, stands upon the lower floor, while the large room
above is used as a club and reading-room. At the beginning of the first
winter of our occupancy of the building, we found that this room, which
had been very pleasant in summer, was extremely uncomfortable in winter.
The long apartment had been originally intended for purposes of storage;
and although we had ornamented it and fitted it up very neatly, a good
deal of carpentry and some mason's work was necessary before it could be
made tight and draught-proof for cold weather. But lately we had spent
money very freely, and our treasury was absolutely empty. I was chairman
of the committee which had charge of everything pertaining to our rooms,
and I felt the responsibilities of my position. The necessary work
should be begun immediately, but how could the money be raised to pay
for it? Subscriptions for this and that had been made until the members
were tired of that sort of thing; and the ill success of the last one
showed that it would not do to try it again.

I revolved in my mind a great many plans for raising the sum required,
and one morning, as I was going to my place of business in the city, I
was seized with a happy idea. At the moment of seizure I was standing in
front of a large show-window, in which were a number of oil paintings,
all of them very fresh and bright. "How would it do," thought I to
myself, "to buy a picture at a moderate price and put it up at a
raffle? People who are not willing to give money outright will often
enter into a scheme of this kind. I will go in and make inquiries."

When I entered I found myself in a large showroom, the walls of which
were covered with paintings. A person advanced to meet me who, as it
soon became evident, was the proprietor of the place. He was a large
man, dressed in black, with an open shirt-front and an expansive
countenance. His eyes and hair were black, and his ears stood out from
his head in a manner which, according to a recent writer, indicates the
money-getting faculty; and he plainly belonged to that class of persons
who in the Middle Ages did not, as is the present custom, pay money for
having their teeth extracted, but often disbursed large sums for the
privilege of retaining them. When I asked him if I could procure a good
and effective picture at a moderate price, he threw out his chest and
waved his arms toward his walls. "There, sir," he said, "you can see oil
paintings of every subject, of every style, and of every class; and at
prices, sir, lower than they can be found elsewhere in the known world.
Mention the kind of picture you want, and I can accommodate you."

I replied that I did not know exactly what I wanted, and that I would
see what he had. I now began to look at the pictures on the walls,
occasionally mentioning my ideas in regard to their merits, when
suddenly my companion turned to me and said:

"Are you connected with the press, sir?"

I replied that I was not, although I occasionally wrote for periodicals.

"Upon art subjects?" he asked.

I answered in the negative.

"Then you are unprejudiced," he said, "and I believe from your
appearance that you are a man of influence, and there is nothing I would
like better than to exhibit the workings of my art organization to a man
of influence, unprejudiced on the subject. My object is, sir, to
popularize art; to place high art within the reach of the masses, and
thus to educate the artistic faculties of even the poorest citizens."

I said that I supposed the chromo movement was intended to do all that.

"No, sir," he replied, warmly; "chromos cannot accomplish the object.
They are too expensive; and, besides, they are not the real thing. They
are printed, not painted; and what the public wants is the real thing,
the work of the brush; and that is what I give them. The pictures you
see here, and an immense stock besides, are all copies of valuable
paintings, many of them in the finest galleries of Europe. I sell no
originals. I guarantee everything to be a copy. Honesty is at the bottom
of all I do. But my copies are exactly like the originals; that is all I
claim. I would like, sir, to show you through my establishment, and let
you see how I am carrying on the great work of art education. There are
picture-dealers in this city, sir, plenty of them, who try to make the
public believe that the vile daubs they sell are originals, and the
works of well-known painters; and when they do admit that the picture is
a copy, they say it is the work of some distinguished student; that
there is no other copy in the country; or they make some other
misstatement about it. These people conceal their processes, but their
tricks are beginning to be well known to the public. Now, sir, I conceal
nothing. The day for that sort of thing is past. I want men of influence
to know the facilities I have for the production of art-work upon a
grand scale. We will first go into the basement. Sir," said he, as I
followed him down-stairs, "you know how the watch-making business has
been revolutionized by the great companies which manufacture watches by
machinery. The slow, uncertain, and expensive work of the poor toilers
who made watches by hand has been superseded by the swift, unerring, and
beautiful operations of machinery and steam. Now, sir, the great purpose
of my life is to introduce machinery into art, and, ultimately, steam.
And yet I will have no shams, no chromos. Everything shall be real--the
work of the brush. Here, sir," he continued, showing me into a long room
filled with workmen, "you see the men engaged in putting together the
frames on which to stretch my canvases. Every stick is cut, planed, and
jointed at a mill in Vermont, and sent on here by the car-load. Beyond
are the workmen cutting up, stretching, and preparing the canvas, bales
upon bales of which are used in a day. At the far end are the mills for
grinding and mixing colors. And now we will go to the upper floors, and
see the true art-work. Here, sir," he said, continuing to talk as we
walked through the rooms on the various floors, "is the landscape and
marine department. That row of men are putting in skies; they do nothing
else. Each has his copy before him, and, day after day, month after
month, paints nothing but that sky; and of course he does it with great
rapidity and fidelity. Above, on those shelves, are sky-pots of every
variety; blue-serene pots, tempest pots, sunset pots in compartments,
morning-gray pots, and many others. Then the work passes to the
middle-ground painters, who have their half-tone pots within easy reach.
After that the foreground men take it up, and the figurists put in the
men and animals. That man there has been painting that foreground cow
ever since the first of August. He can now put her in three and a half
times in fifteen minutes, and will probably rise to sixteen cows an hour
by the end of this month. These girls do nothing but put white-caps to
waves. There's a great demand at present for the windy marine. This next
room is devoted to portraits to order. You see that row of old ladies
without heads, each holding a pair of spectacles, and with one finger in
the Bible to keep the place; that's very popular, and we put in a head
when the photograph is sent. There is a great rage at present for
portraits of babies without any clothes on. Here is a lot of undraped
infants with bodies all finished, but with no heads. We can finish them
to order at very short notice. I have one girl who puts in all the
dimples. You would be surprised to see what a charming dimple she can
make with one twist of her brush. Long practice at one thing, sir, is
the foundation of the success of this great establishment. Take that
girl away from her dimple-pot, and she is nothing. She is now upstairs,
putting dimples into a large Correggio order from the West. This next
room is our figure department, battle-pieces, groups, single figures,
everything. As you have seen before, each man only copies from the
original that part which is his specialty. In addition to its other
advantages, this system is a great protection to us. None of my men can
work at home at nights and Sundays, and forge pictures. Not one of them
can do a whole one. And now, sir, you have seen the greater part of my
establishment. The varnishing, packing, and storage rooms are in another
building. I am now perfecting plans for the erection of an immense
edifice with steam-engines in the cellar, in which my paintings shall be
done by machinery. No chromos, mind you, but real oil-paintings, done by
brushes revolving on cylinders. I shall have rolls of canvas a mile
long, like the paper on which our great dailies are printed, and the
machines shall do everything; cut off the picture, when it has passed
among the cylinders, whereupon fresh canvas will be rolled in for a new
one; another machine will stretch them; and they will pass through a
varnish bath in the twinkling of an eye. But this is in the future. What
I want of you, sir, and of other men of influence in society, is to let
our people know of the great good that is ready for them now, and of
the greater benefit that is coming. And, more than that, you can do
incalculable good to our artists. Those poor toilers on the solitary
canvas should know how to become prosperous, great, and happy; tell them
to go into some other business. And now, sir, I must see what I can do
for you. We will return to my gallery, and I will show you exactly what
you want."

When we reached the back part of the showroom, down-stairs, he brought
out an unframed picture about three feet long and two high, and placed
it in a favorable light. "There," said he, "is a picture which will suit
you. It is what we call a reversible landscape, and is copied from the
only genuine picture of the kind in the world. It is just as good as two
pictures. In this position, you see, a line of land stretches across the
middle of the picture, with trees, houses, and figures, with a light sky
above and a lake, darker in hue, below. Everything on the land is
reflected accurately in the water. It is a landscape in morning light.
Turn it upside down, so, and it is an evening scene; darkening sky
above, light water beneath; the morning star, which you saw faintly
glimmering in the other picture, is now the reflection of the evening
star."

I do not pretend to be a judge of pictures, but I fancy I appreciate an
original idea when I see it, and I thought that this picture might
answer my purpose.

"What is the price of the painting?" I asked.

"Well, sir," said he, "to you, as a man of influence, I will fix the
price of this great painting, from a comparatively unknown work of
Gaspar Poussin, at four dollars and a half."

In spite of what I had seen of the facilities possessed by this
establishment for producing cheap work, I must confess that I was
surprised at the smallness of the sum asked for an oil-painting of that
size; I had expected to give forty or fifty dollars. But, although I am
not a judge of paintings, I am a business man, and accustomed to make
bargains. Therefore I said:

"I will give you two dollars and fifty cents for the picture."

"Done," said he. "Where shall I send it?"

I gave him my city address, and paid the money. As he accompanied me to
the door, he said: "If you would like more of these pictures, I will
sell you one dozen for eighteen dollars, or the whole lot of one
hundred, just finished--and there will be no more of them painted--for
one hundred dollars." I told him one was all I wanted, and departed. I
carried the picture home that afternoon, and in the evening exhibited it
at our club-room, and made known my scheme for raising the money we
needed by getting up a raffle with this painting as the prize; one
hundred tickets at the low price of two dollars each. The reversible
landscape was set up, first one way and then the other, a great many
times, and created quite a sensation.

"I don't think it's worth the half of two hundred dollars," said Mr.
Buckby, our president, "but as the money is for the use of our
Association, I don't mind that. But my objection to the scheme is that,
if I should gain the prize, I should be laughed at by all my
fellow-members: for, to tell the truth, I think that painting is a good
deal more funny than otherwise. It's not what I call high art."

The other members generally agreed with him. They were very much amused
by the picture, but they did not care to possess it, imagining that
those who ridiculed it might also ridicule its owner. This opposition
discouraged me, and I retired to reflect. In about five minutes I
returned to the company, which had now greatly increased, as it was one
of our regular meeting nights, and I asked if they would consent to this
raffle if I would engage that the winner of the picture should not be
laughed at by any other member.

"How will you guarantee that?" asked Mr. Buckby.

"I will put the matter in the hands of the Association," I answered.
"If, after the raffle is over, a majority of the members shall decide
that any of us have reason to laugh at the winner of this painting, I
will refund all the money paid for tickets."

There was something in this proposition which aroused the curiosity of
my fellow-firemen; and when the meeting was called to order, a
resolution was adopted that we would have the raffle, and that the
management of it should be placed in my hands, subject to the conditions
mentioned above. There were a good many surmises as to what I was going
to do to keep the people from laughing at the prize-winner, the general
opinion being that I intended to have the picture altered so that it
would be like an ordinary landscape, and not reversible. But the affair
was something novel, and promised to put the much-needed money into our
treasury; and several gentlemen assured me that they would make it their
business to see that every member took a ticket, one generous man
promising, in the interests of the Association, to present them to such
of the few members as might decline to buy them for themselves. This
offer was made in consequence of my insistance that every one of us
should have a chance in the raffle.

The next morning I went to the art-factory and told the proprietor that
I would take the lot of reversibles he had on hand, if he would include
the one already purchased, and receive ninety-seven dollars and a half
as the balance due.

"All right!" said he. "I have the ninety-nine still on hand. Are you in
the tea business, sir?"

"Oh, no," said I; "the pictures are intended for a large Association."

"No better way of extending the influence of art, sir," he said,
heartily. "I shall charge you nothing for boxing. The same address,
sir?"

"No, they must be forwarded to my residence," and I gave him the needful
directions, and a check.

The next day the ninety-nine pictures arrived and were stored in my
barn. My wife, to whom I had told my plan, made some objections to it,
saying it did not seem right to use half the money paid in to buy so
many pictures; but I told her that no one could expect in a raffle to
clear all the money subscribed, and that although we should not gain as
much as I had hoped, we should clear a hundred dollars, and every man
would have a picture. This was surely fair, and the fact was that the
unsympathetic state of mind of our members made it necessary for me to
do something of this kind, if I expected to raise the needed money at
all.

The raffle was announced, and on the appointed evening there was a full
attendance. The prize was won by a Mr. Horter, an art-collector of a
nervous temperament, who had objected to the raffle, and who had
consented to buy a ticket only after repeated solicitations.

"Now mind," he said to me, "you promised that the other men should not
laugh at me, and I hold you to your contract."

I answered that I intended to stand by it, and that the painting should
be sent to him in the morning from my house, whither it had been
removed. Every member present announced his intention of calling on
Horter the following evening to see why he should not be laughed at.

All the next forenoon my man, with a horse and light wagon, was engaged
in delivering the reversible landscapes, one to every member of our
club. These gentlemen were, in almost every case, absent at their places
of business. When they came home in the evening each found his picture,
with his name on the back of it, and a printed slip informing him that
in this raffle there had been no blanks, and that every man had drawn a
prize.

Not a man called upon Mr. Horter that evening, and he greatly wondered
why they did not come in, either to laugh or to say why they should not
do so; but every other member of our club was visited by nearly all his
fellow-firemen, who ran in to see if it were true that he also had one
of those ridiculous reversible landscapes. As everybody knew that Mr.
Horter had one, there was no need to call on him; and even if they had
hoped to be able to laugh at him they could not do so, when each of them
had drawn one of the pictures himself. A good many called on me, and
some were a little severe in their remarks, saying that although it
might be a very pretty joke, I must have used up nearly all the money
that they had given for the good of the Association, for, of course,
none of them cared for the absurd prize.

But when, on the next meeting night, I paid in one hundred dollars to
the treasury, a sum more than sufficient to make our room comfortable,
they were quite satisfied. The only thing that troubled them was to know
what to do with the pictures they had drawn. Not one of them was
willing to keep his preposterous landscape in his house. It was Mrs.
Buckby, our president's wife, who suggested a way out of the difficulty.

"Of course," she said to her husband, "it would have been much better if
each one of you had given the two dollars without any raffle, and then
you would have had all your money. But one can't expect men to do a
thing like that."

"Not after we had all paid in our regular dues, and had been subscribing
and subscribing for this, that, and the other thing for nearly a year,"
said I, who was present at the time. "Some extra inducement was
necessary."

"But, as you have all those horrid landscapes," she continued, "why
don't you take them and put them up along the top of your walls, next
the ceiling, where those openings are which used to ventilate the room
when it was used for storage? That would save all the money that you
would have to pay to carpenters and painters to have those places made
tight and decent-looking; and it would give your room a gorgeous
appearance."

This idea was hailed with delight. Every man brought his picture to the
hall, and we nailed the whole hundred in a row along the top of the four
walls, turning one with the darker half up, and the next the other way,
so as to present alternate views of morning and evening along the whole
distance. The arrangement answered admirably. The draughts of air from
outside were perfectly excluded: and as our walls were very lofty, the
general effect was good.

"Art of that kind cannot be too high," said Mr. Horter.

A week or two after this, when I arrived at home one afternoon, my wife
told me that there was a present for me in the dining-room. As such
things were not common, I hurried in to see what it was. I found a very
large flat package, tied up in brown paper, and on it a card with my
name and a long inscription. The latter was to the effect that my
associates of the Hook and Ladder Company, desirous of testifying their
gratitude to the originator and promoter of the raffle scheme, took
pleasure in presenting him with the accompanying work of art, which,
when hung upon the walls of his house, would be a perpetual reminder to
him of the great and good work he had done for the Association.

I cannot deny that this pleased me much.

"Well!" I exclaimed to my wife, "it is very seldom that a man gets any
thanks for his gratuitous efforts in behalf of his fellow-beings; and
although I must say that my services in raising money for the
Association deserved recognition, I did not expect that the members
would do themselves the justice to make me a present."

Unwrapping the package, I discovered, to my intense disgust, a copy of
the Reversible Landscape! My first thought was that some of the members,
for a joke, had taken down one of the paintings from our meeting-room
and had sent it to me; but, on carefully examining the canvas and frame,
I was quite certain that this picture had never been nailed to a wall.
It was evidently a new and fresh copy of the painting of which I had
been assured no more would be produced. I must admit that I had felt a
certain pride in decorating our hall with the style of picture that
could not be seen elsewhere; and, moreover, I greatly dislike to be
overreached in business matters, and my wrath against the manufacturer
of high art entirely overpowered and dissipated any little resentment I
might have felt against my waggish fellow-members who had sent me the
painting.

Early the next morning I went direct to the art-factory, and was just
about entering when my attention was attracted by a prominent picture
in the window. I stepped back to look at it. It was our reversible
landscape, mounted upon an easel, and labelled "A Morning Scene." While
I examined it to assure myself that it was really the landscape with
which I was so familiar, it was turned upside down by some concealed
machinery, and appeared labelled, "An Evening Scene." At the foot of the
easel I now noticed a placard inscribed: "The Reversible Landscape: A
New Idea in Art."

I stood for a moment astounded. The rascally picture-monger had not only
made another of these pictures, but he was prepared to furnish them in
any number. Rushing into the gallery, I demanded to see the proprietor.

"Look here!" said I, "what docs this mean? You told me that there were
to be no more of those pictures painted; that I was to possess a unique
lot."

"That's not the same picture, sir," he exclaimed. "I am surprised that
you should think so. Step outside with me, sir, and I'll prove it to
you. There, sir!" said he, as we stood before the painting, which was
now Morning side up, "you see that star? In the pictures we sold you the
morning star was Venus; in this one it is Jupiter. This is not the same
picture. Do you imagine that we would deceive a customer? That, sir, is
a thing we never do!"




DUSKY PHILOSOPHY.

IN TWO EXPOSITIONS.


FIRST EXPOSITION: A STORY OF SEVEN DEVILS.


The negro church which stood in the pine-woods near the little village
of Oxford Cross Roads, in one of the lower counties of Virginia, was
presided over by an elderly individual, known to the community in
general as Uncle Pete; but on Sundays the members of his congregation
addressed him as Brudder Pete. He was an earnest and energetic man, and,
although he could neither read nor write, he had for many years
expounded the Scriptures to the satisfaction of his hearers. His memory
was good, and those portions of the Bible, which from time to time he
had heard read, were used by him, and frequently with powerful effect,
in his sermons. His interpretations of the Scriptures were generally
entirely original, and were made to suit the needs, or what he supposed
to be the needs, of his congregation.

Whether as "Uncle Pete" in the garden and corn-field, or "Brudder Pete"
in the church, he enjoyed the good opinion of everybody excepting one
person, and that was his wife. She was a high-tempered and somewhat
dissatisfied person, who had conceived the idea that her husband was in
the habit of giving too much time to the church, and too little to the
acquisition of corn-bread and pork. On a certain Saturday she gave him a
most tremendous scolding, which so affected the spirits of the good man
that it influenced his decision in regard to the selection of the
subject for his sermon the next day.

His congregation was accustomed to being astonished, and rather liked
it, but never before had their minds received such a shock as when the
preacher announced the subject of his discourse. He did not take any
particular text, for this was not his custom, but he boldly stated that
the Bible declared that every woman in this world was possessed by seven
devils; and the evils which this state of things had brought upon the
world he showed forth with much warmth and feeling. Subject-matter,
principally from his own experience, crowded in upon his mind, and he
served it out to his audience hot and strong. If his deductions could
have been proved to be correct, all women were creatures who, by reason
of their seven-fold diabolic possession, were not capable of independent
thought or action, and who should in tears and humility place themselves
absolutely under the direction and authority of the other sex.