The Inventions of the Idiot

"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."