BRIGHT IDEAS

BRIGHT IDEAS

A RECORD OF INVENTION AND MISINVENTION

BY

HERBERT STRANG

ILLUSTRATED BY C. E. BROCK

HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON, EDINBURGH, GLASGOW TORONTO, MELBOURNE, CAPE TOWN, BOMBAY 1920

CONTENTS

THE SMOKE MACHINE TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED A GAS ATTACK THE CLIPPER OF THE ROAD THE COLD WATER CURE A BRUSH WITH THE ENEMY

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FRONTISPIECE IN COLOUR

"''TIS YOUR DOING,' SPLUTTERED NOAKES, SHAKING THE SOOT FROM HIS CLOTHES" (see p. 38). Frontispiece

"THERE WAS A RATTLING SOUND AND NOAKES WAS HALF OBLITERATED"

"ITS RIDERS WERE FLUNG INTO THE HEDGE"

"TEMPLETON GRIPPED THE UNHAPPY MAN BY THE COLLAR, AND HAULED HIM UP"

"'I'VE COTCHED 'EE,' HE CRIED"

"'HERE I BE, AND HERE I BIDE,' SAID EVES, BRANDISHING THE POKER"

"THEY TRIPPED OVER THE WIRE AND SPRAWLED AT FULL LENGTH"

"'YES,' CUT IN EVES, WHO HAD COME OUT INTO THE ROAD. 'IF I WERE YOU, YOUNG FELLER, I'D JOLLY WELL CHUCK HIM INTO THE HORSE-POND'"

"THE BOOM SWUNG OUT, AND CAME INTO SHARP CONTACT, FIRST WITH NOAKES'S HEAD, THEN WITH THE WIND-SCREEN"

"DAZE ME!' SAID THE CONSTABLE. 'SURELY—AY, 'TIS THE MAYOR'"

"THE WHOLE CONTENTS OF TEMPLETON'S EXPERIMENTAL TANK POURED DOWN"

"THE LAD DASHED ITS HEAD FULL IN NOAKES'S FACE"

"COVERED THEM WITH A DELUGE OF LIQUID MUD"

THE SMOKE MACHINE

I

Bob Templeton tucked a leg under him on the parapet of the bridge on which he was sitting, and with a look of gloomy disgust spread a number of coins, the contents of his trouser pocket, on the weather-beaten stone.

"Eleven and ninepence," he said, dolefully. "That's all."

Tom Eves, who had been leaning his elbows on the bridge, and watching the roach darting among the weeds in the clear running stream below, straightened himself, smiled, and, diving a hand into his pocket, gave a comical glance at the coins it returned with, and said:

"Well, you beat me. I've got seven and fivepence halfpenny, and no chance of more for nearly a couple of months. We're sturdy beggars: under a pound between us."

"You can't do much with a pound."

"True, old sport, and still less with nineteen and twopence halfpenny. Might as well not count the halfpenny."

"And there was so much I wanted to do. There's the levitator, and the smoke machine, and the perpetual pump——"

"And the microphone, and the lachrymator, and the super-stink——"

"And the electric cropper, and the tar entanglement, and—but what's the good of talking? They all mean cash."

"Well, haven't I read, in the days of my youth, in the excellent Samuel Smiles, that most inventors have been poor men?"

"That's all very well; but they started with more than nineteen and twopence half-penny—and war prices, too! It's maddening to think what chances we are missing. This is just the sort of place where you can think out things quietly. No masters to pounce on your inventions before they are half finished. That automatic hair-cutter, now; there was a ripping idea simply squashed flat. A few touches would have made it perfect. If that blatant ass, young Barker, hadn't shouted before he was hurt——"

"Barked before he was bitten."

"Eh? Oh, that's a pun. I wish you'd be serious. If he hadn't shouted and brought old Sandy on the scene the thing might have been finished by now, and on the market."

"And what would the Hun say when he came back after the war and found your patent cutter in every one's pocket? His job would be gone. Really, I've a sneaking sympathy with the gentle Hun."

"I haven't—not a ha'porth. Anyway, now we've got to begin all over again, simply because young Barker hadn't the pluck of a—of a——"

He paused for want of a word.

"Of a cucumber?" suggested Eves, promptly filling the gap.

"Yes—of a cucumber," snapped Templeton, who, for all his lack of humour, was quick to suspect levity in his chum.

"By gum, he did look a sight!" added Eves, grinning in gleeful reminiscence. "Half his crumpet bald as a billiard ball; t'other half moth-eaten."

"Serve him right. If he'd waited until we'd readjusted the clippers, and shut his face instead of raising Cain and bringing old Sandy rushing in at a mile a minute, I'd have made a thorough good job of him. He was a beautiful subject, too; hadn't seen a barber for six weeks."

"And enough grease on his mane to make the thing self-lubricating. There's an idea for you, old man."

"Yes; I hadn't thought of that. But what's the good? Here we're in a quiet village, with the run of old Trenchard's disused barn; all the conditions favourable, but no funds! Upon my word——"

"Hullo, Postie," cried Eves at this point. "Anything for us?"

The village postman, a veteran of sixty years, had appeared round the corner of the lane that abutted on the bridge, his boots white with the dust gathered since he had started his morning tramp of ten miles a couple of hours before.

"Marnen, young genelmen," said the postman. "Fine marnen, to be sure. Ay, I've got one little small thing in the way of a registered letter."

"Then I've no further interest in you, my friend," said Eves. "Registered letters are not in my scheme of life."

"Good now; that saves me the trouble of asking ye which is Mr. Robert Templeton. No, no," he added, as Templeton held out his hand. "Ye'll sign the bit o' paper first. Just there, with my pencil, an 'ee please; 'twon't rub out, and I've got to think of my fame in the land; forty year in the service and no complaints, I don't care who the man is."

Templeton signed the green-tinted receipt slip; the postman handed over the letter, bade them good morning, and shambled away.

"From my aunt," remarked Templeton as he cut open the envelope.

"My prophetic soul!" exclaimed Eves. "How much, Bob?"

Templeton flourished a ten-pound note, but made no reply until he had read through the accompanying letter, which he then handed to Eves with the remark, "She's a good old sort."

"Wasn't it Solomon said, 'Go to the aunts'?" said Eves. A broad smile spread over his face as he read the letter, which ran as follows:

"MY DEAR NEPHEW,

"I am really sorry that we shall not be able to spend the holidays together this year, as we have often done so delightfully in the past, but I feel that I am only doing what is right. It is so important in these terrible times that everybody should practise the strictest economy in food; and every one must do what he (or she) can for our dear country; and I have every hope that by going about the villages in my caravan, as I told you in my last, and delivering simple lectures on the greens and other public places, I may persuade the dear people, especially the mothers, that it is not really necessary to health to have both bacon and eggs for breakfast every morning. If you were a little older and more experienced I am sure that you would be able and willing to give me very great assistance; but after your arduous labours at school I feel you need complete rest from brain work, and you will get that nowhere so well as with dear Mr. and Mrs. Trenchard. To make up for your disappointment in being deprived of our usual simple pleasures I send you a little pocket-money, which I am sure you will spend wisely. I hope and believe that you will not indulge in luxuries; we all of us owe it to our King and country to eat as little as we can. You will find that barley water and onions fried in margarine make an excellent light breakfast; will you tell Mrs. Trenchard that, with my love? In the course of my tour I hope to reach Polstead before your holidays come to an end. I will give you good notice, and rely on you to ensure me a large audience.

"CAROLINE TEMPLETON."

"Excellent Aunt Caroline!" exclaimed Eves. "But your 'arduous work,' Bobby. My hat!"

"I work jolly hard."

"The labour we delight in don't show on our reports, old man. Anyway, you've got a tenner. Better an aunt in England than a pater in India. The old boy's all right, of course; I don't blame him, but that old mummy of a solicitor who manages things here. He'll pay Mother Trenchard's weekly bills on the nail, but he won't send me another penny till next quarter day; theory is, teach me economy, as if any man could come through the summer term with a pocketful of money! The wonder is I've got fivepence halfpenny plus seven bob."

"Well, Aunt Caroline's tenner will go a long——"

"Will go along too fast," Eves interrupted. "What will you try first?"

"You see, I've got such loads of ideas. Better start with something useful and patriotic. The hair-cutter can wait."

"That's rather a pity. Young Noakes's flaxen locks are as long and twice as oily as Barker's. Still, his father might cut up rough; he'd certainly charge you for the hair-oil you'd wasted. Noakes gets my bristles up, and Trenchard looks very blue when he calls. Wonder what he comes for; we've only been here three days, and he's called twice at tea-time, and eaten enormously. Any one could see the Trenchards didn't want him; asked him to stay out of politeness, I suppose."

"I say, we're not getting on. There's the tar entanglement."

"Jolly good idea! Thousands of Huns stuck fast like flies on a fly-paper; you know, one of those you unroll and can't get off your fingers. But don't tar come from gasworks?"

"Really, I don't know. Why?"

"I believe it does. That idea's off, then, for the present. Let's try something with material we can get close at hand."

"Well, what about the smoke machine? With the submarines sinking our vessels——"

"Jolly good idea! Lick the submarine, and the Hun's done—undone, you might say. I vote for the smoke machine, then. By the way, where will you change your note? A tenner's a rarity here, I fancy, and Trenchard won't have any change."

"He'll be going into Wimborne or Weymouth or somewhere to draw his hands' wages at the week-end. We can jog on till then. That's him calling us, isn't it?"

A prolonged shout reminded them that it was time to start work.

"Another idea, Bob," said Eves as they crossed the bridge and walked up the road. "An automatic turnip-puller. Of all the dreary, deadly, backaching jobs, pulling turnips is the rottenest."

"Still, it's work on the land; got to be done by some one. An automatic puller: I'll think it over."

II

Fellow-members of the Sixth Form, and close friends, Eves and Templeton were spending the holidays together by force of circumstances. The latter was an orphan, and lived with his aunt. She, having embraced the temporary career of lecturer on food economy, had arranged that her nephew should undertake voluntary farm work with Giles Trenchard, whose wife was an old family servant of the Templetons', and at whose farm, in the Dorset village we will call Polstead, Miss Templeton had visited more than once. Eves's parents were in India, and the London lawyer in whose guardianship he was placed raised no objection when he proposed to spend the holidays with his friend.

Five Oaks Farm was of no great size, and had been the property of the Trenchard family for generations. The present owner, a hale old yeoman whose features were framed for perennial cheerfulness, had latterly looked rather careworn. A year before the war an epidemic among his cattle had caused him heavy losses. Both his sons had joined the Army and were now fighting in France, a constant source of anxiety. Being short-handed, he was glad enough to avail himself of the voluntary help of the two strapping schoolboys of seventeen, and they had already, though only three days at the farm, firmly established themselves in the good graces of both host and hostess by their readiness to turn their hands to any kind of work.

Templeton, however, had not come to this remote rural spot merely to work on the land. He had a serious belief that he was cut out for an inventor, the only ground for which was an astonishing fertility of ideas. At school he was always in hot water with the masters; he would rather construct an automatic hair-cutter than a Latin prose. The prospect of a six or seven weeks' stay in the quiet village, with the sea within a mile, held promise for Templeton of many opportunities for working out his ideas. There were hours of leisure even on the farm, and Mr. Trenchard, whom he had at once taken into his confidence, was impressed by his earnestness and put an old barn at his disposal, pleasing himself with the hope that some great invention would spring to birth on Five Oaks Farm.

Templeton took himself very seriously, and, as often happens, attracted to himself a very unlike character in Tom Eves, to whom life was one delightful comedy; even the flint-hearted lawyer was matter for jokes—except at end of term. While having a genuine admiration for Templeton, Eves's humorous eye was quick to see the lighter side of his friend's experiments, and he shared in them for the sake of the fun which he did not often trouble to disguise.

That evening, when work was over, Eves and Templeton strolled down to the seashore together to discuss plans for the smoke machine.

"You see," said Templeton in his most earnest manner, "in things like this you can't do better than follow the example of most other inventors, and see if anything in the natural world will give us a start."

"'Follow Nature,'" chuckled Eves. "You remember old Dicky Bird setting that as an essay theme?"

"Yes; he sent mine up for good."

"He jawed me: sarcastic owl! He was always asking for homely illustrations, as he called them, and when I gave him one he snapped my head off. I wrote, 'An excellent example of the application of this philosophical maxim in practical life is afforded by the navvy, who, as the most casual observer will often have noticed, dispenses with a handkerchief when he has a cold in the head.' A jolly good sentence, what?"

"But I don't see——"

"Oh, it's not worth explaining; it was the explanation that rattled the Dicky Bird. What were you saying?"

"I was saying we ought to get a hint from Nature. What's the object of the smoke machine?"

"To make a deuce of a smother, of course."

"Yes, to enable a vessel to hide itself from a submarine. Well, what's the nearest thing in Nature?"

"Give it up; I'm no good at conundrums."

"This isn't a conundrum; it's a scientific fact. You alarm a cuttle-fish, and it squirts out an inky fluid that conceals it from its enemy."

"You don't say so! Jolly clever of it. Ought to be called the scuttle-fish. But how does that help you? You want your cloud in the air, not in the water."

"Of course. The idea is to produce a large volume in a short time, of great opacity, yet spreading rapidly over a large area. What's the nearest parallel in Nature?"

"Human nature?"

"I said Nature."

"Well, human nature's a part of Nature; and, if you ask me, I should say a careless cook and a foul kitchen chimney—the fire engine up, and a month's notice."

"I do wish you'd be serious. But you've hit it all the same. Half-consumed carbon——"

"You mean soot?"

"Soot is half-consumed carbon. That's the stuff we want. It's the very thing, because a steamship produces loads of it every day. All you want is a suitable apparatus and what you may call a firing charge. I'll just make a note."

He took out his note-book, and wrote in his very neat handwriting the following tabular statement:

SMOKE MACHINE.

REQUIRED.

1. Soot. 2. Combustibles. 3. Receptacle. 4. Vehicle.

"Four-wheelers are cheap, but bang goes your tenner, Bobby," said Eves, looking over his shoulder. "Can't you do without the vehicle?"

"You don't understand. We must have something to carry the receptacle along at a good speed, like a ship at sea. A motor-boat would be the very thing, but that's out of the question. We must find something cheap to experiment with on land, and if it works I'll send the scheme to the Admiralty, and they'll provide funds for marine tests."

"Jolly good idea! I suggest we take the things in order. Soot first. What about that? There won't be much in the chimneys. Mother Trenchard's sure to have had a spring cleaning."

"We'll see. Combustibles are easily got."

"Fire-lighters! You can get 'em at old Noakes's; they make a fine smoke themselves and a jolly good stink. Splendid!"

"They might do. I don't see my way to numbers three and four at present, but I'll ask Trenchard if he has anything he could let us have cheap; he takes a great interest in my inventions."

"Good, old bird. I say, it's about supper-time; we'd better get back. You didn't say anything to Mrs. Trenchard about barley water and fried onions and margarine?"

"Not yet."

"Good man! She'll be quite satisfied with Aunt Caroline's love. Come on."

At supper, in the farmer's raftered living-room, while Templeton was considering how to open up the matter of soot with Mrs. Trenchard, Eves suddenly began to sniff.

"Is that a smell of soot?" he said. "Does the chimney need sweeping, Mrs. Trenchard?"

"There now!" exclaimed the farmer's wife, a comfortable-looking matron some years younger than her husband. "If I didn't say to Trenchard I was sure the noses of you London gentlemen would find it out! Us country bodies don't notice it, bless you."

Eves grinned.

"'Tis true," the good woman went on; "it do need the brush. But there, what can you do when the milingtary takes the only sweep in the village and makes a soldier of him? I declare I didn't know him, he was so clean. 'Tis a strange thought: the war makes men clean and chimneys dirty."

"And takes away my appetite," said Eves, with his mouth half full of bacon. "Look here, Mrs. Trenchard, you're going to market to-morrow morning; why shouldn't we sweep the chimney for you while you're away? I'm sure Templeton and I could do it, and we'd like to, awfully."

"'Tis very kind of you, that I will say; but I couldn't abear to think of you dirtying yourselves."

"Oh, that's nothing. We get dirty enough on the farm."

"But that be clean dirt, not like the bothersome sut. Besides, there's no chimney brush and no rods."

"Quite unnecessary," declared Eves. "Templeton has invented a new way of sweeping chimneys, haven't you, Bob?" He gave him a kick under the table. "You've no idea what a lot of useful notions he's got in his head."

"Well now, did you ever?" said Mrs. Trenchard. "Do 'ee tell me all about it, Mr. Templeton."

"To-morrow, Mrs. Trenchard," said Eves, hastily. "You see, it's quite new, and hasn't been properly tried yet. An inventor never likes to talk about his inventions until he's proved they're a success."

"Ay sure; he's in the right there," said Mr. Trenchard.

"I knew you'd agree," said Eves. "Well, then, we've settled that we sweep the chimney while you're out, Mrs. Trenchard, and we'll tell you all about it when you get back. You'll be delighted, I assure you."

When they went up to the room they shared, Templeton turned upon his chum a face of trouble, and began:

"Look here, old man, it isn't right, you know. You know very well I have not invented a way of——"

"Hold hard! You don't mean to tell me you haven't got it all cut and dried?"

"Well, when you began gassing, of course I had to think of something to save my face."

"I knew it! The idea was there; it only wanted switching on, like electricity. What's the scheme?"

"Still, I don't think you ought——"

"The scheme! Out with it."

"Well, I thought we might get on the roof with a long cord, with weights and a bundle of straw tied to one end, and jerk it up and down inside the chimney."

"And the soot falls, and great is the fall of it! Splendid! Couldn't be better. We'll have a ripping day to-morrow."

Next morning, soon after breakfast, Mrs. Trenchard set off for the market town, driving one of the light carts herself. The farmer went off to his mangold fields; the maids were busy in the dairy across the yard; and the inventors had the house to themselves. The simple materials they needed were easily obtained, and within an hour the novel sweeping apparatus was ready. It had been decided that Templeton should climb to the roof, while Eves remained in the room to see how the invention succeeded.