The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, February 05, 1908, Image 10
BOWSER THE SAVANT,
S8fe?'- /
:-V* Flies
a Kite to Learn What Insects
Inhabit Upper Air.
W-\
!THE TEST ENDS IN DISASTER.
k:? Experiment Attracts a Crowd of Small
Boys, and Policeman Interferes?His
i- Wife, as Usual, Shows Little Sym">s
pathy For Him.
- tCopyright, 1907, by T. C. McClure.]
i Whea Mr. Bowser came home to din
< ner the other evening he was fifteen
*X minutes late and had that thdughtful_
I I Jook on his face that comes to a man
.who is given a lead nickel in change
a street car conductor. When Mrs.
Bowser called attention to his lateness
he made an-ambiguous reply, and it
was not until the meal was over that
1 he woke up and said:
"Mrs. Bowser, this is a fine starlight
. . night, with a Breeze of about six miles
-an hour blowing." A more fitting night
; for the experiment could not hare
^ Jbeen made to order."
? ' " 1?-a
< Mrs. uowser lWiitiU U.L mill uuu
|| groaned.
| y There was to be an experiment,
r ! She had thought all the time that he
J; might have a headache. y
.2 " What sort of an experiment? Was
. he' going to try a patent fuel and melt
the top off the range or some gas saving
patenf and blow up the house?
She was wondering over it when he
said:
"For the last year there has been a
; hot dispute between the savants as to
*5 the insects 'occupying the upper strata
of the atmosphere. We know that the
Jower strata are teeming with house
J'- flies, horse flies, mosquitoes, moths,
bugs and other tilings, and for the last
200 years savants have let it go at that
They have now turned their attention
to the upper strata, .however, and are
v anxious to ascertain the forms of life.
2 What insects exist a mile high?* Do*
they have legs? Do they have lungs?
Do they have fangs or teeth? Do they
exist for a day or a week or a month?
' -Do they have* sight or are they blind?
All these are queries to he answered,
: ' and the man who answers them first is
going to find himself famous."
j/, "But what have you got to do with
It?" asKeci Mrs. t>owser.
1, . "Nothing except that I may he the
. | man to solve the mysteries. I rather
. ' expect to be."
^ "Are yon going up in a balloon?"
"No, ma'am. Peopie have been go.
Ing up in balloons for the last hundred
HE WENT INTO HIS OWN BACK YABD.
years, and they have not brought'down
the information sought for.. Indeed,
they have rather muddled things up."
"If you don't go up in a balloon, I
don't see ho*w"? '
"Of course you don't. A woman seldom
sees anything except another woman's
hat It is not expected of her.
The solution is dead easy, however, to
a man?to me. It is so easy that I
am amazed that there should be any
reason for disrmfp. T hone to settle the
thing in an hour."
"I hope you Trill," she demurely replied.
"Now that I come to think of
it, I have often wondered what sort of
creatures were roaming around up
there. I have wondered whether they
were longtailed or bobtailed, whether
they were cross eyed or not, whether
they were lopeared and cockeyed or
as handsome as angels. You will catch
me three or four, won't you?"
His Face Gets Purple.
"By the seventeen bulls of Bull's
Bun, but are you talking such nonsense
to me?" shouted Mr. Bowser as
his face grew as purple as an old
. - plum.
"I?I didn't mean it for nonsense."
"Then you are a born idiot! I might
have known better than to sit down
and talk on any serious subject with
you. How could I expect you to understand
and appreciate? This ends it
Not another word. I make my discoveries
alone. When my name is herald
ed all over the country, as will be the
case inside a week, I will even deDy
that there is a Mrs. Bowser. I will
say that you died ten years ago of
softening of the brain."
"'But I thought from what you said
that there might bo insects in the upper
strata with two humps on them,
like a dromedary, and that it would
be so,nice to keep one under a glass
case and feed him on bones from the
table. If you were very good, you
might feed him once in awhile yourself.
We could call him Willie."
For the next sixty seconds Mr. Bowser
was threatened with a stroke of
apoplexy.
His eyes hung out. His ears worked.
His bald head turned the color of
raspberry ice cream.
. There is hardly a doubt that he
would have been a goner if he hadn't
made the greatest effort in the world
to hang on to himself and if he hadn't
determined on killing Mrs. Bowser in
her bed after he had made his experiments
a howling success. He glared
at her and glared and glared, but he
didn't say another word. Her doom
was sealed.
Out in tko vestibule as he came in
he had left a large box kite and a
small lantern and a ball of stout twine.
He now went out and got the lantern
and lighted it Mrs. Bowser wanted
to ask more questions. She wanted to
ask if he didn't think that the smell
of fried bacon would bring most of the
Inhabitants or that upper strain aowu
to earth long enough to be lassoed, but
a look into his face kept her lips closed.
He had become dangerous. One more
word from her would have sent him
off like a Du Pont powder magazine.
In five minutes she saw what he
was at He was going to send up a
kite with a lighted lantern attached to
' attract the insects up these. He was
going to do more. On one side of thp
kite he pinned a sheet of sticky fly
paper so as to catch and detain any
wandering inhabitant The inhabitant
must either come down or eat the kite
up.
Mr. Bowsef didn't propose to have
his experiments periled by. the presence
of a crowd. He went into his
own back yard to send that kite soar
ing aloft There was a good breeze
for kiteflying, and, after galloping up
and down the yard a few times and
making a few failures, away she went
toward the clouds, and then with the
aid of the stepladder he climbed to the.
roof of the shed and sat down to let
the fly paper do its scientific work.
The secrets of the upper strata were
about to be solved for the first time in
the history of man, and the solver
couldn't be blamed for feeling a warm
glow stealing over him.
\Mr. Bowser had taken the boys into
consideration when he sought his back
yard, but not sufficiently. He hadn't
figured on the fact that when a boy
sees a light bobbing around in the
heavens he is bound to find out whether
Mars has broken loose from its
wharf or some one has sent up a lantern.
His kite was net yet 200 feet
high when twenty pairs of sharp eyes
were watching that lantern and wondering
where the string led to. In ten
minutes they had located it and were
running down the- alley and taking
seats on top of the fence and calling to
each other:
"Say, now, it's Mr. Bowser, and he's
got hold of a great idea!"
Offered Money to Vanish.
The first -comers were offered !10
cents apiece to vanish, but they indignantly
refused. If there was anything
in the shape of a menagerie coming
down from the upper strata they wantj
ed to be there .to see. It was inevJ
itable that a policeman should get on
to the boys soon after they had got
on to Mr. Bowser. He followed the
crowd down the alley, and men and
women followed, him. It was reported,
that another "crime wave" had set in,
and they wanted to help hang somebody.
Mr. Bowser was seen sitting on
the shed and holding the string of the
kite. . Just as he felt a nibble from
some creature of the clouds the cop
climbed the fence ana caueci out:
"See here, old man, what's all this
about?"
"In the interest of science," was the
reply. : N
"In the interest of bosh! You get
that kite down at once. Can't you see
that you are drawing a crowd and disturbing
the peace? There'll be a thousand
people here in no time."
"I am on my own land, sir," protested
Mr. Bowser.
"That makes no difference. You either
bring that kite down or I'll bring
you!" >
Mr. Bowser rose up to protest anew
and in more vigorous language, and in
his excitement he slipped and went
falling from the roof upon the grass.
There was an awful yell from a hundred
throats. The kite began to fall,
and everybody rushed for the string.
They ran over the prostrate man; they
broke down fences: they snapped
clotheslines. A minute later the yard
was cleared as the crowd ran up the
alley to catch the falling kite. Then
the dazed and trampled Mr. Bowser
sat up to hear some one saying:
"Poo? man! lie will never try it
npm'n And I shall never have a two
humped insect and -call him Willie!"
M. QUAD.
s?
1 Probably.
"I've just been thinking," said Willieboy.
"Thinking what?" demanded Silliman,
to whom the idea of Willieboy's
thinking was somewhat disconcerting.
"That in Adam's case it must have
been a real re-leaf to change his
clothes," said Willieboy. ?- Harper's
Weekly. '
Enterprise.
^
"Sell ye a nice air cushion cheap."?
Browning's Magazine.
A Safe Pursuit.
It's got to be I dursn't go
Out in the wood& to shoot
Fur fear I'll be mistook fur game
Ey some gash-dern galoot.
But I kin set upon the "cri#k"
Ez often ez I wish.
I guess they ain't nobuddy round
.Will take me fur a fish!
?Joe Cone in Puck.
I
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