Part 58

"How about the windows?" said Dink.

"They're a cinch," said the Shad. "When you get the shade down and the shutters closed a blanket will fix them snug as a bug in a rug. Now, at nine o'clock we can go to bed without suffering from drafts. Ha, ha--joke."

"Burn the midnight oil, etceteray--etcetera."

"To-morrow," said the Tennessee Shad, "Volts Mashon is going to install a safety light for us."

"Elucidate," said Dink.

"A safety light is a light that has a connection with the door. Shut door, light; open door, where is Moses? Midnight reading made a pleasure."

"Marvelous!"

"Oh, I've heard of that before," said Finnegan.

The Tennessee Shad, meanwhile, had been busy stretching a string from his bed to the hot-air register and from a stick at the foot of his bed to a pulley at the top.

Stover and Finnegan waited respectfully until the Shad, having finished his operations, deigned to give a practical exhibition.

"This thing is simple," said he, stretching out on his bed and pulling a string at one side. "Opens hot-air register. No applause necessary. But this is a little, comforting idea of my own. Protection from sudden change of temperature without bodily exposure." Extending his hand he pulled the other rope, which, running through the pulley over his head, brought the counterpane quickly over him. "How's that? No sitting up, reaching down, fumbling about in zero weather."

"That's good as far as it goes," said Dennis, whose natural state was not one of reverence; "but how about the window? Some one has to get up and shut the window."

"Simple as eggs," said the Shad, yawning disdainfully. "A string and a pulley do the trick, see? Down comes the window. All worked at the same exchange. Well, Dink, you may lead the cheer."

Now, Stover suddenly remembered a device he had been told of, and, remembering it, to give it the appearance of improvisation he pretended to deliberate.

"Well," said the Tennessee Shad, surprised, "my humble little inventions don't seem to impress you."

"Naw."

"They don't, eh! Why not?"

"Oh, it's the right principle," said Stover, assuming a deliberate look; "but crude, very crude, backwoods, primitive, and all that sort of thing."

The Tennessee Shad, amazed, looked at Finnegan, who spoke:

"Crude, Dink?"

"Why, yes. All depends on whether the Shad wakes up or not. And then, why hand labor?"

"I suppose you have something more recherché to offer," said the Tennessee Shad cuttingly, having recovered.

"Why, yes, I might," said Stover coolly. "A real inventor would run the whole thing by machinery. Who's got an alarm clock?"

Dennis, mystified, returned running with his.

Stover, securing it with strings, fastened it firmly on the table, which he moved near the scene of operations. He then lowered the upper half of the window, assuring himself that a slight impetus would start it. To the sash he attached a stout string which he ran through a pulley fixed to the top of the window frame; to the string he fastened a weight which he carefully balanced on the edge of a chair; to the weight, thus fastened, he attached another string which he led to the clock and made fast to the stem that wound the alarm. Then he straightened up, cast a glance over the Shad's handiwork and went to the register.

"When the window shuts it should open the register, of course--first principles," he said crushingly. He disconnected the string from the bed and arranged it on the window. Having wound the clock he addressed his audience:

"It's a simple little thing," he said with a wave of his hand. "I happened to remember that the key of an alarm clock turns as the alarm works. That's all there is to it. Set the alarm when you want to wake up--see--like this. Alarm goes off, winds up spring, throws weight off balance, weight falls, shuts the window, opens the register and you stay under the covers. Practical demonstration now proceeding."

The mechanism worked exactly as he had predicted. The Tennessee Shad and the Wild Irishman, transfixed with awe, watched with dropped mouths the operation. Finnegan, the first to recover, salaamed in true Oriental fashion.