Evening Star Newspaper, January 17, 1929, Page 37

GiraVieNi THE VICARION—5 T8\ ieNi 78181118\ /8Y1/8) 78\ In the year 1935 Radley Brainard demon- rates to some friends his invention where- y it s possible to project past events ex- ctly as they happened. In the group are sweetheart, Phyliis Norman: her fa- her, mother ‘and brother, John: John's weetheart, Carol Gould, and Radley’s Aunt elief. While they are looking at a damous dinner given for a motion picture star who ad “been drowned a week before, and adley explains the scenes he shows are released m_ liquid air contained "in o g gaunt man staggers in He cannot remember who he Phyllis by her name pames the stranget Van Winkle. Radley is expiaining the possibilities of nis invention in the Norman home some one fires at him thro dow. He he Dbelieves he was u is. but calls scene out of Van Wirkle's lost life—the n wounded, being placed on a rail (Continued from YesterGay's Star.) INSTALLMENT XI. “Ho—The Vica- AROL crowed. ; rion! Makes vicarious experis|ly: With a ruthlessness ence easy. Live without effort! | Phyllis cold to the heart. Live unscathed! Live your own or anybody else’s life—as long as you like—as often as you like—when you like—where you like! Oh, Phyl— think of spending the afternoon with Madame de Maintenon—or Bloody Mary! Why, I can be all kinds of ‘woman that they were! All kinds there are—in my little self! No experience barred to me—and no penalties to pay!” She laughed excitedly. “Fancy sitting out dances with Richard the Lion Hearted—or—having tea with the Delphian Apollo! Or taking a walk along the trail of Dante and Virgil! And I don't dare to tell you what I'm really fancying!” “You won't have to break into fiction for companions, Carol,” John said. “No—oh, joy—I'll find out what is | face that seemed stricken with mad- by her own impulse to snatch at the thing like a fruit that could be picked, fevered with anticipation of marvels to which she knew she was as blind as one who tries to see the sun! On the floor above they entered a | room that was similar in size to the studio below. Several persons were here. Excitement enough was in the air. A babel of conversation in the hoarse tones of men. Abruptly Mr. Nor- man tried to warn them back, But was too late. On the floor in the midst of the room lay a man—groveling there. He | turned toward where Phyllis stood a ess. He was moaning as if with pain. His hands were clutching meaninglessly. He covered and uncovered his eyes with them—and clutched again! And moaned! “What is it?” asked Brainard sharp- that turned “He’s off his head, Mr. Brainard!” An officer in patrolman’s uniform stepped | “He went to pleces—an’ I don’t_blame him! You ought to told him what he was goin’ to see!” | “Scared?” asked Brainard. “Dippy! He saw himself in that there | libery, an’ he let a yowl out of him like to busted m * ears. "I nearly yelled my- self! Say, what kind of a——-—"" | Brainard. “No place to put him.” “Well, are you satisfled he is the man who robbed us last night?” “Eh? Well, yes! But how in the name o'—" “Never mind that.” “But I don’t see—"" “You don't have to. Take him away and shut him up. I'll see the chief.” fiction and what isn't—about every- PHYLLIS' HEART LEAPED AS IF THE SOUND PORTENDED IM. MEDIATE CATASTROPHE. body, from Shakespeare and his Bacon, to Jonah and his whale! I'm going to turn all my property into annuities and come here to stay, Rad. I won't create a scandal—because we can have any- body” for chaperon from the original Dorcas to St. Genevieve! And I shan't have time to compromise you when I can pal around with Charlemagne, or Valentino, or Rameses II, or Kublai Khan!” She shrieked with laughter. “Oh, dear, oh, dear! All this and a wishing ring besides!” “But you must already have a great organization, Radley,” said Mr. Norman. “Who was it you just now directed to ‘draw in’ our garden?” “An assistant upstairs,” replied Brainard. “I have the whole of the next floor above—and the roof.” “Full of people working for you?” “Yes—a few of the people who work for me are there.” “And do they all know your secrets?” asked John. “Some of them know something about ‘em.” “But aren’t they wild about it?” de- manded Carol. . Radley shrugged. “What would you say if I tell you that one little gum- chewer could see nothing in Pocahontas but the way she did her hair?” “I'd say she was a mythical char- acter, too!” exclaimed Aunt Relief. “That's it!” said Radley; “most em- ployes won't believe in the Pocahontases any more than Aunt Relief does—and the rest will get surfeited pretty soon, like the clerk in the candy store.” “Not if they see things that are within their ken,” said Phyllis. “Fancy your little gum-chewer ever becoming surfeited with your Whippleton dinners and your Hanrady murders!” “Fortunately my records are invisible a8 they come in,” Brainard answered. “My employes can make them without seeing them. And I shall see to it that nobody gets too much. As a matter of fact I expect to make ‘shows’ part of their wages.” He turned down his lights abruptly to the dimmer illumination. “Want to see the man who robbed library last night, Mr. Norman?” asked. “I don't mean another g:jecum of his etheric double, but real chap, ‘The police brought him in this morning—and I think they've been seeing our show through & sort of periscope arrangement while ‘we saw it here.” He did not wait for responses but crossed to the door and opened it. ‘The rest followed, drawn like street urchins after the timeless hurdy-gurdy. Presently, Phylis thought, the world would be dancing after this piper! | ‘Would human beings become surfeited with what he had to give them? Men | often became surfeited with life. But | was not that because too much actual living burned out vitality? What would living too much vicariously do to them? A tremendous revulsion rose in her, Something was abnormal about this— something like a gigantic perversion! ‘What happened to people who' wit- nessed the real tragedies of life habitu- ally? And the wiees. Doctors and purses? Ad sclentific interest keep them sane and humane? But doctors and nurses at worst saw merely results | —not the things that caused them. Were not the causes contagious? Was not crime itself something like an in- fection? What sort of ancient pesti- lence or plague might spread through modern eyes that looked upon its real festering passions and its raw sores? Action? Well enough—if action were always heroic. But the world's action at best was not commonly heroic—and at worst, there were human gorillas—and cobras! Heroism itself, saintless, lay less often in deeds than in something “The Vicarion” would never record. ‘What were deeds but the mere outpic- turs] of those things the Vicarion would not get? She could not think it through. Per- haps no brain could grasp now the far- Teaching consequences of which her father had spoken. Did humanity itself always revolt from its worse debauches? But had humanity ever been offered | such a temptation as this? Censors, indeed! What authority could insti- tute a censorship over a rush for life life in the raw, unbleached, appare: without effort and without penalty rush for life would eclipse any rush for gold the world had ever seen! ‘The very feebleness of her own 24 carats real!—that | Brainard turned to his guests. “Come back this way,” he sald, and 1::“ the way past them and into the “But, Radley, that poor chap was fairly crazed by what he had seen,” said John as they followed. “He'll get over it. But are you sur- Frlsed Brainard laughed again slight- y. “His sort is going to furnish some interesting experiments.” He opened a door into a room, lined with white like the stus below. “Here is where I have my shows for the employes,” he said, as if he had quite forgotten the man in the other room. Ranks of chairs filled nearly all the floor space. Phyllis sank into one of them; she was weak and {ll “I .don’t show my people much of anything but nice little scenes,” Radley was going on to the others. “As I told Aunt Relief, I carefully look over every scene before I exhibit it here.” “And you have to recondense it every time after it escapes?” “That's easy! Having its vibration index, it is simple and almost without cost to capture it again.” “But don't you have to have an enormous power plant?” “No. We discovered long ago that it isn’t force that accomplishes things— it's finding the key.” Phyllis listened in a_ half compre- hending daze. How could they take it 50? Her mother! “Are you going to show us something here?” asked Carol, eager. “I have some new ones here that I will show you if I were sure just what they are,” answered Brainard, at her. “Then you still have a consclence, have you, Radley?” queried his aunt. “Wait,” said Brainard. He ste) to the rear wall and opened a cupboard y Gardner Hunting (Copyright, 1928, by Public Ledger) THE EVENING Z K LGN 1AL 9 He slipped a bomb into a niche simi- lar to the one in his studio. From the white wall at his side hung a long, beg-like hood, attached. He lifted it and slipped it over his head—a receiv- ing head set! His hand reached out for a switch beside him. But at the instant a thundering knock came at the door of the room. Phyllis’ heart leaped as if the sound protended immediate catastrophe. Brainard whipped the hood from his head and his face was dark with | anger. “Who's there?” he shouted. “Say—Mr. Brainard!” came a hoarse voice from outside. “This here guy | Honer, he's jumped out of the twelft’ ;‘l{oor Wwindow! = He jumped —see ? STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, thought snarled like threads gone wrong in a loom. She turned to look at the others of her little party. Her eyes fell zzpon Coral, The younger girl was standing beside the switchboard which Brainard had just left. As Phyllis looked at her she was just reaching out to lift the hood-like head receiver that hung ugon the wall. Apathetically Phyllis watched her, only marveling that the girl's curiosity could ignore everything but a means of satisfying itself. Carol tossed her little hat aside and slipped the hood over her head as Radley had done. Her hand groped out toward the switchboard; she found a lever and moved it. moved to another switch, as all the ?thers turned to look at her. She swung t. Phyllis saw a blood-red flare of light within. Then it whitened and disap- peared. Carol stood leaning against the wall, an easy, indolent little figure, full of unconscious grace. A lovely little human thing she was! Out of the very chaos of Phyllis' heart welled up a yearning affection for the girl, waking now as such emotion wakes unbidden at the unconsclous gestures of a child. The lights in the | big projection room rose from moderate | illumination to a blaze. The girl's hand | Through the fabric of the hood | flung it open, rose outside. no more. ing, even within her own brain, where “Why don’t you pick him up?” asked Bralnard rushed to the door and A confusion of volces Phyllis could distinguish | She could distinguish noth-{ But suddenly, current. ELFAND’S Relish Sandwich Spread is too delicious with pickles, peppers, mustard and spice to want it put on thin. Just try it on toast or bread! Made by the makers of Gelfand’s fa. mous mayonnaise. 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