genially. “You don’t think I’m going to divulge a secret that’s worth millions, do you?”
Eben’s face fell. “I thought you’d let an old friend in—a brother lodge member,” he said wistfully. And at the same time Eben formed his hands into the distress signal of the order.
Mr. Fosdick pondered. His lodge was to him a thing sacred. Every Wednesday night in the hall over Lem Whitley’s grocery store, Mr. Fosdick sat in state; he was the presiding officer, and the thunder of his voice as he read the ritual to the trembling neophytes was a thing that was very dear to him. And Eben had given him the grand hailing sign!
“Brother Stetzle,” he said at last, “I’m going to tell you—and what’s more I’m going to let you in.”
Mr. Stetzle leaned forward and with great enthusiasm gave Mr. Fosdick the grip. “Brother!” he exclaimed.
Picking up his textbook, “Electricity at a Glance,” Mr. Fosdick turned the pages until he came to the following paragraph:
“Flowers and even insects can be preserved indefinitely by powdering them with graphite and then depositing a thin film of copper over them by means of a plating battery.”
“Does that mean anything to you?” His voice was tense with feeling.
Mr. Stetzle read the paragraph and slowly shook his head.
“Who would want to preserve insects indefinitely? I just hate the sight of ’em,” and Eben scratched his back as though the very suggestion brought back unpleasant memories.
Mr. Fosdick smiled tolerantly. “You are deficient in imagination, Eben.” He leaned forward and whispered: “What would you say to a scheme of using the principle for undertaking purposes?”
Mr. Stetzle failed to grasp the significance of the question.
“I don’t know of any insect undertakers—of course there’s fellows in the big cities that make a business of killing———”
“But I mean for men—for human beings!”
Preserving the Dead. A Beautiful Silver Statue
EBEN shook his head hopelessly. “I just can’t quite get you.”
Mr. Fosdick sank back in his chair with almost a feeling of disgust. He surveyed his unimiginative lodge brother for a long minute and then straightening up, outlined his scheme in words of few syllables.
“It’s like this, Eben,” he began. “If insects can be copper-plated, human beings can be copper-plated. And if a human being can be plated he, or she, can be preserved indefinitely—and with absolute fidelity as to face and form. You take the old Egyptian mummies—what are they to-day? Why, just crumbling shells that don’t look like anything. But suppose those bodies had been electroplated? Why, they would simply be statues of their original selves.”
Mr. Stetzle nodded. “I begin to understand now,” he said.
“Listen. We’d simply make every corpse its own monument. Mount the monument on a cheap concrete base and stand it up in the cemetery. No excavating, no coffin, no box—nothing but the monument itself. Think of the saving! The cadavers can be plated not planted, at an expense of three dollars apiece—we can get fifty, or even a hundred. And there are annually over one and a half million deaths a year in this country alone. Suppose we only made a profit of ten dollars apiece. The total is fifteen million for the United States, annually. Add to that the profits on the undertaking of seven million funerals throughout the balance of the civilized world. Can you grasp it? Why, Eben, a hundred thousand a day would be nothing!”
Mr. Stetzle sat as one in a trance. “It’s overpowering,” he gasped.
Mr. Fosdick smiled. “Why, I haven’t begun yet. As a matter of fact the profit per job of The International Electro-Galvanic Undertaking Corporation—that will be the name of the concern—will be more like fifty dollars than ten. And even more. Listen. Only the cheaper grades of corpses will be finished in copper. The majority will be nickel-plated; silver will be used for those of moderate means; and gold for the aristocrats.”
The proprietor of the chop-mill was speechless.
“And just think what a handsome place the new cemeteries will be of a sunny morning. Copper, nickel, silver and gold statues all sprinkled about. Cheerful is no word for it! Why, man, they’d become amusement parks!”
Mr. Fosdick softly drummed his fingers upon the arm of his chair while he allowed the idea to sink in.
“I’ve thought of a splendid new feature to the scheme,” suddenly said Mr. Stetzle. “How would it do to have mounted in the statue somewhere a phonograph with a cylinder of ‘last words,’ or a song or a recitation—you remember how Clem Titus that’s dead and gone now, used to recite every time he got drunk, ‘Goodbye, Jim. Take keer of yourself.’ Well, that’s the idea. By pulling a string the phonograph reels out anything that was characteristic of the deceased. Old man Fisher used to cuss the administration———”
“I think that would be undignified,” interrupted Mr. Fosdick, “a thousand of your confounded phonographs working at full blast—songs, recitations, speeches, and so on! Why, it would be noisier than Coney Island!”
The enthusiasm of the new idea slowly faded from Mr. Stetzle’s face and he subsided.
“Well,” said he, after a silence of some minutes, “when do we try it?”
“As soon as we can get a corpse.”
“Must we wait? There hasn’t been a death in Whiffleville in five years.”
Mr. Fosdick had not thought of that. For a moment his dream was shattered, and then with the resourcefulness of the true inventor he thought of a way to overcome the difficulty.
“No,” said he, “we will not wait. We will try the scheme upon a living person—you.”
Mr. Stetzle paled. “I’d rather not,” he protested weakly. “I’m too fat and wouldn’t look good.”
“The first statue will be you,” declared Mr. Fosdick. “Why, man, it will be an honor!”
“But I don’t want my ears and eyes and nose stopped up with no dodgasted copper-plating,” protested Eben.
Once more Mr. Fosdick’s resourceful brain came to the rescue: “You will only be plated from the neck down.”
