OCR Text |
Show &ieSoiid Absorber Q Florence Gray ls33SnHJi Harvard-Tale football riJ, dlum, and a demonstration ISof' of the Sound Absorber was 8 shortly to be on. JsLJ Hon. William Gazukes, the millionaire, who seemed to he renewing his youth, sat chatting excitedly with the inventor and a party of friends. It seems that the Hon. Gazukes had recently been forced, through a practical joke on himself, to become Interested In this sound absorber ab-sorber and to realize that ft had a variety va-riety of possibilities, for his riend. Faxon, the inventor, had lain in wait for him one day by the side of a building. build-ing. He had seen the millionaire coming com-ing toward him, earnestly engaged In conversation, and wishing to demonstrate demon-strate his Invention, he had quickly sprung upon a barrel and, as quickly, he had set the absorber in rapid vibration, vi-bration, so as to disturb the atmosphere atmo-sphere before the faces of the gentlemen. gentle-men. Neither was able to hear the other and after much consternation Faxon, -with a twinkle In his eye, coo-fronted coo-fronted them. The millionaire then became anxious to try it on a crowd, and had secured seats for his friends In little gronps about the stadium, all of them being located within the Tale cheering line. "Little do people about us know what we have on our minds," he was saying. They were happily expectant and laughed as the old gentleman added : "Or should I say: 'on our coatsT " for each one of the 30 men In the party was supplied with a sound absorber. This Invention wns simply a circular circu-lar plate, with curving edges, looking something like h flattened bowl. The Had Lain in Walt for Him. piate was lo catch vibrations, which are carried in waves to their ears tl.Tough t ho atmosphere arouud them. In the center of the apparatus were small revolving plates, which, being fanlike, when set in motion would break up, by an area of disturbed air. the sound waves assembled in the bowl. For, as the Inventor argued, we cannot prevent the creation of noises, but we can in a great measure stop them from annoying us. Not caring to attract attention, the men had hooked the plates across their inner coats at the chest, hanging them from the front edges of their overcoat sleeve holes, and allowing the flaps of their coats to hang out and tide them from the side view. The batteries which were to set the fans in motion were in an Inner pocket of tach coat. Harvard rooters were busy, alternately alter-nately with Tale's. The game stood 6-0 for Harvard at the first half. Bands were playing and college songs had been sung. Red and blue flags and hmners were waved in the spirit of the game of the season. The women, whose costumes displayed predominantly predom-inantly the colors of their respective teams, lent a gayety to the scene. The Crimson had emitted in one roar "Rah rah rah 1 Rah rah rah I Rah rah rah ! Har-vard !" and Tale was getting get-ting ready. Toung men, swinging their arms to get the Elis to yell together, looked in surprise that there was no response. Again they tried, but could not hear themselves. Everyone was wondering what was th matter. Plainly the leaders had retn heard In the first place, but th.re was no response. No one had Amazement on Every Face. sense enough to close his mouth, notwithstanding not-withstanding it had apparently become useless, for there was only an occasional occasion-al sound, as though half articulated, where some voice had not come within with-in the range of the sound absorbers distributed through the crowd. "Soy, I shall bnst," groaned the inventor. in-ventor. "We will raise the devil. We must shut these things off," for amazement amaze-ment was evident on every face. "Am I bereft of my senses?" one nun muttered. Harvard, from her side, was shouting: shout-ing: "What's the matter with the Elis? They've lost their wind!" Everyone was keyed to a great tendon, ten-don, especially the Gazukes men, and all of them were greatly relieved when, on the third attempt, they heard the leaders of the Blues call : "Now, together. to-gether. Rah rah rah! Rah rah rah I Tale! Hoo-ray! We're all right!" Mr. Gazukes knew tt would not do o interrupt the cheering again, and nchllgrated with the first experiment, It was with much uneasiuess that he waited for a further test at the theater thea-ter later. As the game proceeded, the inventor whs whispering to the millionaire: "Wouldn't It be more fun than a barrel bar-rel of monkeys to take it Into the gallery of the stock exchange when 1 Ids were being made? Orders would be given and, not being heard, would forever fall to be carried out. What a pandemonium would result. How funny it would be to see the quotation quota-tion men running back and forth before be-fore the board as the prices came in, but with no noise In the pit. "I rather think, though," said the millionaire, "that it would not be so roaringly funny, when we were put out." That evening at the performance of "Nancy's Fancies," the party wa Waiting Expectantly. close to the orchestra. During the second act one of the conspirators leaned toward the millionaire, when, a? previously arranged, they all turned on the absorbers suspended over their vests, and endeavored to whisper, j "They can't imngine what's the mat-I mat-I ter." But the joke was on him, for he could not hear his own voice, and Mr. Gazukes could only guess at what he meant. A trio behind the footlights was waiting expectantly for an Introduction Introduc-tion to their song. The conductor, who at first was quietly waving his baton and Indicating for the first violin to commence, then looked angrily at him and nodded his head wildly to go on. People were surprised. Although those In the front seats could see the bows passing over the Instruments, there was no sound. The leader of the orchestra then Indicated for the drummer to drum. The veins on his temples stood out and his hair seemed to rise from his forehead, while his spectacles slid along his nose to the furthest distance from their proper position. Now there was consternation consterna-tion that, while he seemed to be giving orders, no results were forthcoming, and, not understanding, the audience was getting restless, looking around. Harvard's night at the theaters when she wins are dreaded perhaps as much by conductors as by the actors, act-ors, who know that interruptions may be expected at the most Inopportune times, and, awakening to the fact that this was r ime Joke, the conductor commenced com-menced to scan the audience. All this had taken but a few moments, mo-ments, although the time seemed an eternity to the men who occupied the entire second row. Already one of the chorus girls was "on," and they began be-gan to fear the partial obstruction of the persons in the front row would not be enough to shield them from the scrutiny of the actors. Involuntarily they drew their coats together and shut off the batteries. The millionaire rather sheepishly nudged the man next to him, but he was enjoying to the utmost his diabolical plan. When things went smoothly again, the star improvised : "This was no fancy of Nancy's, neither was it a fancy of ours." Hon. William Gamkeg then whispered whis-pered to the Inventor: "I am convinced of the satisfactory working of the marvelous sound absorber." (OuyrU-tit. leia, wjtern KmPf CokA.) |