The Inventions of the Idiot

"With that encouragement, then," said the Idiot, "I will endeavor to lay before you my crowning invention. Dreamaline, as its name may suggest, should be a patent medicine, by taking which man should become oblivious to care." "What's the matter with champagne for that?" interrupted the Genial Old Gentleman who occasionally imbibes. "Champagne has some good points," said the Idiot. "But there are two drawbacks--the effects and the price. Both of these drawbacks, so far from making us oblivious to our cares, add to them. The superiority of Dreamaline over champagne, or even over beer, which is comparatively cheap, is that one dose of Dreamaline, costing one cent, will do more for the patient than one case of champagne or one keg of beer; it is not intoxicating or ruinous to the purse. Furthermore, it is more potent for good, since, under its genial influences, man can do that to which he aspires, or, what is perhaps better yet, merely imagine that he is doing that to which he aspires, and so avoid the disappointment which I am told always comes with ambition achieved. "Take, for instance, the literary man. We know of many cases in which the literary man has stimulated his imagination by means of drugs, and while under the influence has penned the most marvellous tales. That man sacrifices himself for the delectation of others. In order to write something for the world to rave over, he takes a dose which makes him rave, and which ultimately kills him. Dreamaline will make this entirely unnecessary. Instead of the writers taking hasheesh, the reader takes Dreamaline. Instead of one man having to smoke opium for millions, the millions take Dreamaline for themselves as individuals. I would have the scientists, then, the chemists, study the subject carefully, decide what quality it is in hasheesh that makes a writer conceive of these horrible situations, put this into a nostrum, and sell it to those who like horrible situations, and let them dream their own stories."