Show 1849 by the Short story pub co 11 ing his ay carefully through the crowded down town streets li had often noticed a strange bent figure ot remarkably shrewd and in tell igent face but having the albear ance of premature age and gearino that jool peculiar to those deprived of some important faculty what he lad ed I 1 could not conjecture uie at first I 1 thought the shrewd eyes might be sightless but the man never hesitate ed la taking a step among the whirl ing vehicles then deafness suggest ed itself as the old mans infirmity but was in turn dismissed the enor horn slung to a strap across his not resemble a speaking trumpet it looked like an am mense megaphone except for its gracefully curved outlines and hand some enamel and nici el finish the peculiarity tha attracted most atten tion one at which almost every idle pedestrian stopped to stare was the odd 1001 ing old man s inveterate habit of hitching up on shoulder and fre bringing the smaller end of bis queer horn on a line with his hat brim the only remaining aeterna tive therefore seemed to suggest that this strange looming individual must be dumb but had contrived some ex 1 ind of instrument for making himself intelligible to others but here theory was opposed by the fact that so far as my observation went he never tried to communicate with others it was therefore with surprise not unmixed with gratification that I 1 saw him one day stop suddenly with one of h s peculiar hitches and extend a cordial hand to my friend hudson who is in the electrical supply bus ness they carried on a brief but apparently animated conversation and when they separated I 1 hastened after hudson and indu red the name of bis queer acquaintance that cried hudson why that s marcus brunder and his horn I 1 thought everybody linew about mar cus come step in and lunch with me and tell ou all about him AS we lunched hudson talked and told me the following strange story and as I 1 give it pretty nearly in his exact words I 1 shall use no marks of quotation for years you know I 1 have had a store fronting on devonshire street it is on the ground floor its large plate glass windows afford a broad view of the busy thoroughfare and above all it Is particularly central and convenient but it is frightfully maddeningly noisy ordinary conversation Is ren dered practically impossible during business hours formerly I 1 used to take prospective buyers into the big fireproof vault at the extreme rear of the office until one day there was trouble with the lock I 1 happened to be inside at the time so was the president of one of the largest concerns in new eng land it was a cheerful moment when after tv hours of semi suffocation with our noses against a cold steel door sill the profess onal safe openers on the outside announced that they would be obliged to use dynamite when we crawled out the prospective customer had lost both eyebrows most of his hair and one whisker and he buy the goods after all but notwithstanding all the draw backs I 1 have somehow stuck to the same old store why I 1 can t exactly say it s just my disposition I 1 hate a change one morning I 1 had just arrived in my office when in walked brunder ov im not saying a word against in walked brunder brunder he s an inventor and un like most of them some of the things he gets up actually work well anyway brunder came in and sat down I 1 yanked open a couple of ventilators to let in the fresh morning air and converset conver sat on immediately became an athlea feat we commini caad partly in i intorf ime for some time when suddenly yelled this no st is something terrible I 1 nodded some ears ago I 1 learned to save my strength but I 1 have a plan for doing a vay it entirely I 1 1001 ed urt r aed it just came to me as I 1 was sitting here be explained you 1 now that it has been proven that both light and sound tra el in waves also that it s an old law of physics that action and reaction are equal now I 1 read the day that somebody some bod has discover ed that by tl rowing beams of light they pulled the string and I 1 haven t heard anything since of the same intensity directly at each other the light waves nullified each other and produced a distinct zone of darkness that being the case what s the matter with generating a sound of equal intensity and projecting it against the other sound and letting the sounds as it were swallow each other up like the kilkenny cats and sitting in the resulting sound vacuums I 1 asked precisely well but how are you ever going to work to do thata I 1 asked bously easy enough there Is such a thing as a microphone an instrument that so magnifies sound that you can hear a fly walk said I 1 it I 1 kemem ber it consists of a tiny double point ed carbon suspended between two standards and connected with a re celver exactly so now take a wheat stone bridge such as is used in the naval range finders and rig it up so that varying impulses will work by means ot electromagnets electro magnets a sliding plug in say an organ pipe adjusting it automatically to any pitch con hect the pipe up with a motor driven compressed air blower and there you are but it will take just a little mon ey he continued with an appealing glance simply for a few preliminary experiments and if there s anything at all in it there s a fortune thereupon I 1 did an unwise but very human thing I 1 think the amount was twenty five dollars days came and went and with them the radiant and sanguine brunder first it was drawings and then it was patterns and last it was twelve gauge copper and insulating tape and slowly with the aid of and numerous five and ten dollar bills the marvelous mechanism went together brunder from time to time report ed good progress and finally came in one afternoon with the startling and to me most unexpected announcement that the thing actually would we shut the ventilators so he could talk and he imparted to in a hoarse and joyous whisper that it was a sure winner just one more test said he and then show it to you ive just this minute got the bermis sion of the government to try it down to the sandy hook proving grounds it it stands that it will stand any thing and the non auditory radius is three feet four said he with pride after the date when brunder was due back from new york I 1 missed bim for three days at the end of that time I 1 ran around to the little eighth story bad room which he uses as a sort of office aad laboratory As I 1 shut the door he did not dooh looh around but continued his writing un disturbed then I 1 noticed suspended from the ceiling and within reach of hand the immense hom that has puzzled you and other so much B jove said I 1 with a gasp of astonishment I 1 believe the thing does work after all then I 1 walked toward him I 1 found I 1 could plainly hear my own footsteps as well as other sounds but apparently he was in the charmed zone and oblivious to my noise I 1 touched him on the der and with a jump of startled sur prise he bi ought the sn all end of thu no n to his ear that jerk of his and said hello well tell us all about it I 1 asked he leaned further toward m and ditched the big horn alosa what luck did OU have old ma ia I 1 rejoined louder he his head mournfully and handed out a pad and pencil this Is great I 1 scrawled re a bonder I 1 always knew you 1 do it well I 1 don t know said he I 1 took my position six feet to one elde of a 12 inch coast defense mortar the charge was pounds I 1 can t tell whether my machine worked or not they pulled the string and I 1 haven t heard anything since but he has learned since then by constant practice at the little end ol 01 the horn to hear much of what Is going on around him |