The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton

by Wardon Allan Curtis

  _The Adventure of Norah Sullivan and the Student of Heredity._

  It was the time of full moon. As the orb of day dropped its red, hugedisk below the western horizon, over the opposite side of the world,the moon, even more huge and scarcely less red, rose to irradiate withits mild beams the scenes which the shadows of darkness had not yettouched. Miss Nora Sullivan, a teacher in the public schools of themetropolis, sat upon the front porch of the paternal residenceenjoying the loveliness of the vernal prospect and the balm of theair, for it was in the flowery month of June. Although the residenceof Timothy Sullivan was well within the limits of the municipality ofChicago, one visiting at that hospitable abode might imagine himselfin the country. From no part of the enclosure could you, during theleafy season, see another human habitation. A quarter of a mile downthe road to the east, the electric cars for Calumet could be seenflitting by, but except at the intervals of their passing, there wasseldom anything to suggest that the location was part of a great city.A quarter of a mile to the west, on the edge of a marsh--a situationwell suited to such culture--lived a person engaged in the raising ofAfrican geese. As it is probable that you may never have heard ofAfrican geese, I will tell you that they are the largest of theirtribe and that specimens of them often weigh as high as seventypounds.

  The person engaged in the culture of African geese was WilhelmKlingenspiel, a man of German ancestry, but born in this country. MissSullivan had often heard of him, she had even partaken of the left legof an African goose, which leg he had given Mr. Sullivan for theSunday dinner, but she had never seen him. As Wilhelm Klingenspiel wasyoung and single and as no other man of any description lived in thevicinity, it is not strange that Nora, who was also young and single,should sometimes fall to thinking of Mr. Klingenspiel and wonder whatmanner of man he was.

  On this evening so attuned to romantic reveries, when the flowers, thebirds, and all nature spoke of love, more than ever did NoraSullivan's thoughts turn toward the large grove of trees to thewestward in the midst of which Wilhelm Klingenspiel had his home andcarried on his pleasant and harmless vocation of raising Africangeese. The evening song of the geese, tempered and sweetened bydistance, came to her, accompanied by the most extraordinary boomingand racketing of frogs which is to be heard outside of the tropicalzone; for not only did Klingenspiel raise the largest geese on thisterraqueous globe, but having, as a means of cheapening the cost oftheir production, devoted himself to the increasing of their naturalfood, by principles well known to all breeders he had developed abreed of frogs as monstrous among their kind as African geese areamong theirs. By these huge batrachians was an extensive marshinhabited, and battening upon the succulent nutriment thus afforded,the African geese gained a size and flavor which was rapidly makingthe fortune of Wilhelm Klingenspiel.

  Nora had often meditated upon plans for making the acquaintance ofWilhelm, but it was plain that he was either very bashful or soimmersed in his pursuits as to be indifferent to the charms of woman,for he had never made an attempt to see Nora in all the six months shehad been his neighbor, and she was well worth seeing.

  Accordingly, she decided that if she did not wish to indefinitelypostpone making the acquaintance of the poulterer, she must take theinitiative. Timothy Sullivan was a market gardener. Klingenspiel wasnot the only man in the neighborhood who grew big things. Mr. Sullivanwas experimenting upon some cabbages of unusual size. He had startedthem in a hothouse during the winter. Later transferred to the garden,they had attained an amplitude such as few if any cabbages had everattained before. In the pleasant light of the moon, even now was heengaged with the cabbages, pouring something upon them from a wateringpot. As she watched her father, it occurred to Nora that she couldfind no more suitable excuse for visiting Mr. Klingenspiel than incarrying him some present in return for the goose's left leg he hadpresented her family for a Sunday dinner, and that there was no moreappropriate present than one of the great cabbages.

  No sooner had her father gone in than, selecting the largest cabbage,she started off with it, putting it in a small push-cart, as it was solarge as to be too heavy and inconvenient to carry. It was somewhatlate to call, but the evening was so delightful that WilhelmKlingenspiel could hardly have gone to bed. Proceeding on her way, asthe road passed into the swampy land of Klingenspiel's domain, herattention was engaged by the fact that a most singular commotion wastaking place among the giant batrachians at some remote place south ofthe road. Their ordinary calls had increased both in volume andfrequency, and at intervals she heard the sound of crashing in thebrake and brush, as if some objects of unheard of size were fallinginto the marsh. Looking in the direction whence the sounds came, shesaw indistinct and vague against the night sky, an enormous roundedthing rise in the air and descend, whereupon was borne to her anotherof the strange crashings. These inexplicable sounds and theinexplicable sight would have frightened Miss Sullivan had she not theresources with which modern science fortifies the mind againstcredulity and superstition. The round object, she told herself, wassome sudden puff of smoke on a railway track far beyond; the crashingwas the shunting of cars, which things, coming coincidentally with abattle of the frogs, to an ignorant mind would appear to be aphenomenon in the immediate vicinity. Bearing in mind that thisseemingly real, but impossible, phenomenon could only be due to afortuitous concatenation of actual occurrences, Nora was not disturbedin her mind. Leaving her cart some little distance up the road, inorder that she might not be seen in the undignified position ofpushing it, she walked into Klingenspiel's front yard, bearing hergift.

  The two-story white house of Wilhelm Klingenspiel seemed to bedeserted. Despite the genial season, every door was shut, and so wasevery window, so far as Nora could see, for if any windows were opendown stairs, at least the blinds were shut. There were no blinds inthe second story. Looking around in no little disappointment, she wasastonished to see a row of sheds and fences in rear of the house hadbeen demolished as if struck by a cyclone and that a goodly sized barnhad departed from its normal position and with frame intact was lyingon its side like a toy barn tipped over by a child. As she was gazingupon this ruinage and striving to conjecture what had caused it, sheheard a voice, muffled and strange, yet distinctly audible, saying:

  "Ribot is running amuck, Ribot is running amuck," and looking up shebeheld, darkly visible against the panes of an upper story window, ahuman form. As she looked, the form disappeared and presently a personrushed from the front door, hauled her into the house and upstairs,where she found herself still holding her cabbage and observing ashort man of a full habit, with a round moon face, illuminated by alarge pair of spectacles that sustained themselves with difficultyupon a very snub nose. He was nearly bald, yet nevertheless of akindly, studious, and astute appearance. One did not need to looktwice to see that Wilhelm Klingenspiel was a scholar.

  "What--what--what is the matter?" exclaimed Nora.

  "Ribot is running amuck."

  "Who is Ribot?"

  Klingenspiel was about to answer, when the whole air was filled withwhat one would have called a squeal if it had been one fiftieth partso loud, and over a row of willow bushes across the road leapt anastounding great creature, twice as large as the largest elephant, andNora began to realize that her scientific deductions regarding thephenomenon in the swamp had been utterly erroneous. The creature wasof an oblong build, rounded in contour, and its hide was marked bylarge blotches of black and rufous yellow upon a ground of white. Withextreme swiftness the creature scurried down the road, its legs beingso short in proportion to its body and moving with such twinklingrapidity that it seemed to be propelled upon wheels. The appearance ofthis strange monster and the appalling character of its squealing,caused Nora to tremble like a leaf, but the animal having departed, alaudable curiosity made her forget her fears, and she asked:

  "What is it?"

  "That was Ribot."

  "Who and what is Ribot?"

  "Ribot was a celebrated French scientist, an authority on the subjectof
heredity. You doubtless know something of the subject, how certaintraits appear in families generation after generation. Accidentaltraits, if repeated for two or three generations, often becomeinherent traits. To show you to what a strange extent this is true, Iwill call your attention to the case of the ducal house of Bethune inFrance, where three successive generations having had the left handcut off at the wrist in battle, the next three generations were bornwithout a left hand."

  The erudite dissertation of Wilhelm Klingenspiel was here interruptedby the reappearance of the mottled monster, who, with a scream thatfilled the blue vault of heaven, rushed into the yard and pausedbefore a mighty oak, whose sturdy trunk had stood rooted in that soilbefore the city of Chicago existed, before the United States was born,when Cahokia was the capital of Illinois and the flag of France wavedover the great West. The flash of terrible white teeth showed in themoonlight as the monster gnawed at the base of the tree a few timesand with a crash its leafy length lay upon the ground. Contemplatingfor a brief space the ruin it had wrought, the monster emitted anotherof its appalling screams and was off once more on its erratic, aimlesscourse.

  "What in the world is this awful creature?" cried Nora.

  "The subject of heredity," resumed Klingenspiel, "is one of vastimportance, and although its principles are well understood, man hashitherto not touched the possibilities that can be accomplished. Thespan of a man's life is so short that in selecting and breeding choicestrains of animals, an individual can see only a comparatively smallnumber of generations succeed each other. Suppose some one family hadfor two hundred years carried on continuous experiments in breedingany race of animals. What remarkable results would have been attained!Behold what remarkable results are attained in raising varieties ofplants, where the swiftness of succeeding generations enables man toaccomplish what he seeks in a very short time. Observing thedifficulties that confront the animal breeder and wishing to see in myown lifetime certain results that might ordinarily be expected only ina duration of several lifetimes, I sought an animal which came tomaturity rapidly, whose generations succeeded each rapidly. At thesame time, I wanted an animal comparatively highly organized, amammal, not a reptile."

  At this point, his instructive discourse was interrupted by thereappearance of the monster, which charged into the yard with its noseto the ground, following some scent, sniffing so loudly that the soundwas plainly audible despite the closed window. After having hastenedabout the yard for a few moments it was off up the road to theeastward, still with nose to the ground, until coming to the push cartleft at the roadside by Nora, it examined it carefully and then with asudden access of unaccountable rage, fell upon it and demolished it,beating and chewing it into bits.

  Whatever celerity this terrible beast had exhibited before, was nowcompletely eclipsed, as with nose to the ground, it rushed back to theyard, straight to the house, and rearing on its hinder quarters,placed its forelegs on the porch roof, which gave way beneath theponderous weight. Not disconcerted by the removal of this support, themonster continued to maintain its sitting posture, looking in thewindow at the terrified persons beyond, snapping and gnashing its hugejaws in a manner terrible to hear and still more terrible tocontemplate. Nora was partially reassured by observing that theanimal's head was too wide to go through the window, but the hopesthus raised were dashed by Klingenspiel moaning:

  "He'll gnaw right through the house, he'll chew right through theroof. He'll get in. He has smelled that big cabbage and he'll get in."

  "In that case," remarked Nora, with decision, "I'll not wait for himto come in to get the cabbage, but throw it out to him," and raisingthe window, thrust out the cabbage, which having caught with adeftness unexpected in a creature of its bulk, the beast retired ashort space and proceeded to eat with every appearance of enjoyment.

  "In Paris, a few years ago," resumed Klingenspiel, "one of the learnedfaculty that lend a well deserved renown to the medical department ofthat ancient institution, the University of Paris, discovered anelixir which used during the period of human growth--and evenafter--causes the stature to increase. By depositing an increasedsupply of the matter necessary to the formation of bones, the frameincreases and the fleshy covering grows with it. You have doubtlessread of this in the papers, as I have seen it mentioned there recentlymyself----"

  "I beg your pardon," interrupted Nora, "but I must know what thatmonster is. Please do not keep me in suspense any longer."

  "Allow me to develop my discourse in its natural sequence," saidKlingenspiel. "I learned of this elixir at the time its originatorfirst formulated it and as we were friends, I secured from him theformula----"

  "What is that animal?" cried Nora, seizing Klingenspiel's ear with adexterity born of long experience in educational work, and lifting himslowly toward a position upon the points of his toes.

  "A guinea pig, a guinea pig, a guinea pig," howled the student ofheredity.

  "You guinea, you," exclaimed Nora in incredulous amazement, and yet asshe looked at the monster, which having finished the cabbage wascrouching contentedly between two huge elms, she was struck by thefamiliarity of the markings and contour of the tremendous brute.Turning in such wise that of the appendices of his countenance itshould be his short and elusive nose instead of his ears presentedtoward the grasp of the expert in the science of pedagogy,Klingenspiel continued.

  "Generations of guinea pigs succeed each other in less than threemonths. In less than ten months, a pair of guinea pigs becomegreat-grandfather and great-grandmother. In a few years, hereditycould here do what a century of breeding horses could not. I treated apair of young guinea pigs with the elixir. Their growth was wonderful.Their children inherited the size of their parents and to this theelixir added, and so on, cumulatively, for successive generations. Ikept only a single pair out of each brood and disposed of that pair assoon as the next generation became grown. I did this partly because Icould thus conduct my experiment with greater secrecy. Besides, afterthe guinea pigs were large enough, I found considerable profit inselling their hides for leather. Unfortunately, the animal is unfitfor food. My labors, therefore, were bent upon creating a breed ofdraught animals, creatures greater than elephants and with the agilityof guinea pigs. A team of these guinea pigs would outstrip the fastesthorse, though hauling a load of tons. The hide, too, would beextremely valuable. I had at last reached a size beyond which I didnot care to go. Ribot and his mate were twice the bulk of elephants. Iwas now ready to establish a herd. But alas! Two days ago, the matedied. All my labors were for nothing. I had only the one enormous maleleft. All the connecting links between him and the first smallancestors are gone. But worse. As is often the case with maleelephants when the mate dies, Ribot went mad, ran amuck. Hithertodocile and kind, as is the nature of the _Cavia cobaya_, vulgarlycalled guinea pig, this evening Ribot became as you have seen him. Ihave lost my labors. Momentarily I expect to lose my life."

  "What's the matter with it now? Look at it, look at it," exclaimedNora.

  Ribot had rolled on his back and after giving a few feeble twitches ofhis great legs, remained without life, his legs pointing stiffly intothe air.

  "He is dead," said Klingenspiel, and Nora was unable to tell whetherrelief and joy or regret and despair predominated in this utterance."Ribot is dead. Our lives are saved, my experiment is ruined."

  Turning toward Nora and scrutinizing her attentively for the firsttime, he remarked, "How white your face is. The strain has been adreadful one. It has driven all the color away from you." And thenletting his eyes wander over her person until they paused upon herhands resting in the moonlight upon the top of the sash, "and howgreen your hands are. What can it be? Paris green," he said after aclose examination. "It was that which killed Ribot."

  "I remember now. Father was sprinkling something on them. It iscabbage worm time."

  "I hope you will allow me to call," said Klingenspiel, and Noragraciously assenting, he continued: "I admire your beauty, I admireyour many admirable qualities of head
and heart, but above all, yourdecision, your great decision."

  "Oh, I don't think I showed much decision just because I threw thecabbage out."

  "I referred to your taking my ear and learning, out of its due orderin the thesis I was expounding, what manner of beast Ribot was. Ribotkilled two of my best African geese. They are, however, still fit forfood. I am going to beg your acceptance of one."

  "We will have it for dinner to-morrow," said Nora, "and you must comeover."

  "I shall be pleased to do so," said Klingenspiel, and that was thebeginning of a series of visits to the home of Timothy Sullivan thatresulted in the marriage of Miss Nora and Wilhelm Klingenspiel. Thelatter still raises African geese there in the vicinity of StonyIsland, but he has made no more experiments with guinea pigs, for hiswife will not hear to it.