dren and a husband, who as a theory was a
poet, but who as a reality is a mere business machine who is oftentimes
no fonder of staying at home than he was before he was married and went
out to see her every night."

"What a wise little pessimist he is!" said Mr. Pedagog to the Doctor.

"Very. But I fail to comprehend why he branches off into Pessimism when
Electricity was his text," said the Doctor.

"Because he's the Id--" began the Bibliomaniac, but the Idiot
interrupted him.

"Don't jump fences, gentlemen, before you know whether they are made of
barbed wire or not. I'm coming to the points you are bringing up, and if
you are not careful they may puncture you," he said. "I am not in any
sense a pessimist. Quite the contrary. I am an optimist. I'm not old
enough or cross-grained enough as yet to be a pessimist, and it's
because I don't want to be a pessimist that I want this Elixir of
Electricity to hurry up and have itself patented. If men when they
reached the age of twenty-five, and women at eighteen, would begin to
take this they might live to be a thousand and yet retain all the spirit
and feelings of twenty-five and eighteen. That's the connection, Dr.
Capsule. If I could be twenty-five all my life I'd be as happy as a
bird--and if I were the Poet here I'd immortalize that idea in verse--

"A man's the biggest thing alive
When he has got to twenty-five;
And as for woman, she's a queen
Whose summers number just eighteen."

"That's a good idea," returned the Poet. "I'll make a note of that, and
if I sell it I'll give you a commission."

"No, don't do that," said the Idiot, slyly. "I shall be satisfied to see
your name in print."

The Poet having accepted this sally in the spirit in which it was
intended, the Idiot resumed:

"But of course the Elixir and the Electrical Pills are as yet all in the
air. We haven't even taken a step in that direction. Mr. Edison and
other wizards have been too much occupied with electric lights and
telephones and phonographs and transatlantic notions to pay any
attention to schemes to prolong life and keep us, despite our years,
perpetually young."

"I fancy they are likely to continue to do so," said the Doctor.
"Whatever motive you may attribute to me for pooh-poohing your notions,
I do so. No sane person wants to live forever, and if it were possible
that all men might live forever, you'd soon find the world so crowded
that the slighter actors in the human com