Robur the Conqueror | Page 8

in other
places they speak of father, though the father may have had no
children.
Uncle Prudent was a personage of consideration, and in spite of his
name was well known for his audacity. He was very rich, and that is no
drawback even in the United States; and how could it be otherwise
when he owned the greater part of the shares in Niagara Falls? A

society of engineers had just been founded at Buffalo for working the
cataract. It seemed to be an excellent speculation. The seven thousand
five hundred cubic meters that pass over Niagara in a second would
produce seven millions of horsepower. This enormous power,
distributed amongst all the workshops within a radius of three hundred
miles, would return an annual income of three hundred million dollars,
of which the greater part would find its way into the pocket of Uncle
Prudent. He was a bachelor, he lived quietly, and for his only servant
had his valet Frycollin, who was hardly worthy of being the servant to
so audacious a master.
Uncle Prudent was rich, and therefore he had friends, as was natural;
but he also had enemies, although he was president of the club-- among
others all those who envied his position. Amongst his bitterest foes we
may mention the secretary of the Weldon Institute.
This was Phil Evans, who was also very rich, being the manager of the
Wheelton Watch Company, an important manufactory, which makes
every day five hundred movements equal in every respect to the best
Swiss workmanship. Phil Evans would have passed for one of the
happiest men in the world, and even in the United States, if it had not
been for Uncle Prudent. Like him he was in his forty-sixth year; like
him of invariable health; like him of undoubted boldness. They were
two men made to understand each other thoroughly, but they did not,
for both were of extreme violence of character. Uncle Prudent was
furiously hot; Phil Evans was abnormally cool.
And why had not Phil Evans been elected president of the club? The
votes were exactly divided between Uncle Prudent and him. Twenty
times there had been a scrutiny, and twenty times the majority had not
declared for either one or the other. The position was embarrassing, and
it might have lasted for the lifetime of the candidates.
One of the members of the club then proposed a way out of the
difficulty. This was Jem Chip, the treasurer of the Weldon Institute.
Chip was a confirmed vegetarian, a proscriber of all animal
nourishment, of all fermented liquors, half a Mussulman, half a
Brahman. On this occasion Jem Chip was supported by another

member of the club, William T. Forbes, the manager of a large factory
where they made glucose by treating rags with sulphuric acid. A man of
good standing was this William T. Forbes, the father of two charming
girls -- Miss Dorothy, called Doll, and Miss Martha, called Mat, who
gave the tone to the best society in Philadelphia.
It followed, then, on the proposition of Jem Chip, supported by William
T. Forbes and others, that it was decided to elect the president "on the
center point."
This mode of election can be applied in all cases when it is desired to
elect the most worthy; and a number of Americans of high intelligence
are already thinking of employing it in the nomination of the President
of the Republic of the United States.
On two boards of perfect whiteness a black line is traced. The length of
each of these lines is mathematically the same, for they have been
determined with as much accuracy as the base of the first triangle in a
trigonometrical survey. That done, the two boards were erected on the
same day in the center of the conference room, and the two candidates,
each armed with a fine needle, marched towards the board that had
fallen to his lot. The man who planted his needle nearest the center of
the line would be proclaimed President of the Weldon Institute.
The operation must be done at once--no guide marks or trial shots
allowed; nothing but sureness of eye. The man must have a compass in
his eye, as the saying goes; that was all.
Uncle Prudent stuck in his needle at the same moment as Phil Evans
did his. Then there began the measurement to discover which of the
two competitors had most nearly approached the center.
Wonderful! Such had been the precision of the shots that the measures
gave no appreciable difference. If they were not exactly in the
mathematical center of the line, the distance between the needles was
so small as to be invisible to the naked eye.
The meeting was much embarrassed.

Fortunately one of the members, Truck