The St. Louis Republic. [volume], August 06, 1905, SUNDAY MAGAZINE, Page 9, Image 51

About The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919

Image provided by: State Historical Society of Missouri; Columbia, MO

                
SUNDAY MAGAZINE for AUGUST . IftS
r
THE STRANGE STORY OF A
MAN WITH A SIXTH SENSE
GRIER
Jtfk
ill. The Finding of Maggie Hutchinson
RL
I. V.
his
Ind
SIR WI I. L I A M
MACI'HKRSON
carnol his K. C.
',. not Mi much by
thirty years of
as bv the com
parative leisure of a
jiension. which enabled
him to write that fam
ous essay on "Ilrain
Excitations." He has
told tne since that
the genesis of the
theory which likens
man to an induction
coil came to him as
the oars swung merrily
back to the Ganges.
he striving the while
to restore the Armen
ian's vitality.
"Karl." he whis
jered. stirred by the
impulse of the mo
tnent. 'c:iti you see
your father?"
The ! looked un
erringly toward the
north, where Darjiliiu
lay. eight hundreil
miles distant. "No."
he said after a slight
pause, "it is dark."
"Dark?" rcj-cated
the scientist.
"Yes. like a fg at
night, you know."
" Hut there is no fog.
and it was just as dark
a few minutes ago when
you saw Mr. Constan
tino in the sea."
Karl seemed to focus
his thoughts; once more. Then he nestled wearily
close to his friend. "Smiething scents to jire.ss me
back, and I am tired." he said.
Every woman who reads this in all probability
would like to So Macphcrson's ears. And indeed
he had the good grace to le ashamed of himself;
so one may admit that if tlinrtors did not push in
tlividual experiments a trille too far occasionally,
humanity would le the worse for their caution.
Nevertheless, though he contented himself with
asking the third officer to shield the lioyfrom the
keen surface of the sea. his mind was busy. Karl's
wonderful comprehension of root words was known
t him. and he felt that the expressions "dark."
"fog." "something seems to press me back," even
the unwonted excuse of loing "tired." were nt
chosen at random.
Then he rememlcred how a friend had taken
"m once, when home on furlough, to witness cer-
n telephonic tests conducted by the jioxt-office
engineers at St. Martin's-le-tlrand. An instru
ment was affixed to an appliance which registered
ten. fifteen, twenty, thousand miles tf resistance
at will, for such high tensions are needed when
sea-cables are laid. It was instructive to hear the
same human voice dying away as the conductivity
of the wire decreased. Again, he happened to le
present when the Indo-Eurojican Telegraph Com
pany carried out its famous oxjcriment. and
actually linked a transmitter in Paris with a receiver
in Calcutta. As far away as Teheran the action of
the select ric indicator was sharp and distinct, but
from Constantinople westward through Vienna
the current liecame sluggish, until the supreme
e-T(.rt of Paris required slow and careful manipula
tion ere the message emerged from chaos.
Here .were unfailing indications of what Karl
meant by "pressing back" and "tired." Hut what
was the significance of the darkness, the fog?
Suddenly Macpherson asked himself. "Whit was
the force which fought against the thousands of
miles of telegraph wire? Suppose there was no
wire? Yet the force remained!"
It came to him that the child cast his bright
intelligence forth in ever-spreading Hertrian waves,
and that his perceptive towers diminished with
distance, on the well-established ratio of the de
crease of sound as the circle widens and the air
waves lengthen with slower movement. More-
By LOUIS TRACY
Author of "Souls on Fire." "The Win of the Morning." "The Great Mogul." Etc.
niustoa&ed by William de I. Bodge
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Th arnoptll of precmlinrf ckaptvrm will
foufMl mX th td of Y instalment on a((v
hr-
Ther Wm an
tant's Gloom, and
Then H Wm Look
ing on m Sunlit Scene
over, the apparent difficulty of reconciling his in
stant discovery of planets known only to astron
omers with his inability to ieiietrate deeply the
gloom of earth vanished when the lateral density
of the air mantle was taken into account. To see
the three moons of Jupiter! Tliat was a marvel in
itself. Strangely enough. Du Maurier. an artist
dreamer, had attributed the power to one of the
characters in his novel "The Martian." Hut Harty
Jossoiin was a single phase in the many existences
of a spirit's romance: here was a child, an intensely
human child, with eyes like telescopes and ears like
telephones.
Greatly was the s-ientist tempted to try Karl
again on the nearer and wholly unknown physical
features of Colomlo. Hut he resisted and vigor
ously chafed the Armenian's chest and back, though
to le sure the tenacious clinging of the youth to
the canvas buoy rendered such massage difficult.
Thenceforth, during the voyage home. Con
stantino HMcred Karl with hi attentions. He
seemed to be drawn to his heels with a ludicrous
dg-lik: fidelity. The Armenian was lean, tall and
dark, with the big black eyes, large mouth, small
ears and prominent nose of his race. Ordinarily,
he w:is a bumptious and exceedingly "clever"
young man. the heir to scores of rttiees and a busi
ness of world-wide renown, yet the mere sight of
Karl skipping toward him along the deck would
stop his blatant chatter and convert him into a sort
of two-legged spaniel, of exceedingly timid dis
position, which hail just caught sight of its master.
This submissiveness amused the other iasscngcrs.
annoyed Mrs. drier, and caused Macpherson cer
tain p nderings.
Contantinc told the doctor that when he found
himself in the water grasping the life-buoy his first
impression was th it the ship could not possibly
find him. He l-og-in to cry in a frenzy, but sud
denly he liecame reassured. After that he had no
fear of Wing drowned, but he had a horrible pre
monition that a huge shark was rushing from the
depths with incredible sccd to devour him. The
memory of this shark always returned whenever
he xi w Karl. The monster's jaws ojiened. He
could fool it crushing his lxnes. The sensation
passed away ft'ickly if he rcm-iined near his rescuer.
The ! throve splendidly alioard ship. Con
stantino went to England overland from Marseilles
but he again met the
Ganges at Tilbury,
and Mrs. (trier could
hardly refuse the al
dermanic gold watch
and altsurdly heavy
chain he presented
to Karl. The watch
had a tine inscription
too: " From Paul Con
stantinc to Karl Grier,
in memory of the
S.S. Ganges. Bay of
Hcngal. Lat., i.-:io
X.: Long.. S:o E."
There was a date,
but Karl was saved
from inind-searchings
by the fact that his
mother placed the
gift in the bank, to
await later years.
And then Karl went
to school. Just pic
ture this sturdy little
human dynamo, with
his suerhuman eyes
and ears, sitting down
in class with a num
lcr of vouthful Edin
burgh contempora
ries! Yet it was im
possible for his par
ents to encourage tne growth of his spiritual
faculties (as one may describe them) at the
eiense of the equipment needed to lit him for
the citizenship of the world. S he learned the
exact locality of the North Cape in Lapland, the
value of the common denominator and the great
utility of the algebraic X. And as he pored over
liooks. so the hidden spark dimmed.
At first he was wont to startle his conianions
no less than his tutors. When a master was ex
plaining tliat the moon was a satellite of the earth,
and was iopularly known :is a destroyed world
owing to the arid mountains and volcanic chasms
with which her bright face is desecrated, it was
slightly ridiculous to le told by a loy of eleven, all
aglow with interest:
"Oh yes. sir. 1 saw the lunar mountains quite
plainly last night. Ami there are several great
pits as black as ink."
"Nonsense. Grier!" the master would say sharply,
and Karl would lc stilled for the hour. Hence he
kept to himself the daily knowledge he had of the
hours of high water in the Forth, many miles away.
Once by chance the same master had arrange I
to take his class on a Itoating excursion up the
Firth, anil the question of tide arose. Karl volun
teered the information that the tide would be high
alo tit three o'clock. Examined as to his accuracy
(he was a careless young dg in selling or arith
metic), he admitted that he had no actual know
ledge except the "feeling."
Fortunately. David Malcolm, the master, was a
man prone to take stock of the young idea, so he
wrote to Mrs. Grier. and received a iositive shock
when that sensible and level-headed woman gave him
the assurance f evidence that her son was not ro
mancing. Indeed, it may lie assumed without fear
of contradiction that to Malcolm's growing apprecia
tion of the lioy's iowers was due in great measure
their retention. Even under his kindly sway Karl
was rapidly assimilating to the mold of the sclnl.
Games, lessons, discipline, the smaller issues of
daily intercourse with other 1kvs. were coating
the inner lerceptivetiess with a dense mem
brane. At this eril Karl almost lost his universal
language key. Declensions and conjugations choked
intuitive knowledge, and to all seeming, when
his father brought him to Oxford at the age
of eighteen, young Grier was only a lively, intelli
gent and muscular undergrad. exceptionally bright
jK-rhaps. but in no wise the "phee-nomenon" Sir
William Macpherson had duhtied him.
So Dams Nature, not to le balked in the develop
ment of her prodigy, arranged matters with that
happy knack of hers whereby she cloaks design
under the guise of accident.
Grier had leen at Oxford for two years when a
menag-rie visited the classical city on the Isi.
Although wi!d-least shows are not regarded by t':;
authorities as essential aids to Oxonian suiccv?