There was no escape. Mr. Fosdick was adamant, and it was with great reluctance that Mr. Stetzle finally agreed to submit to the experiment.
"To-morrow," said Mr. Fosdick, "the embalming vat—the plating bath, I should say—will be ready for you."
Mr. Fosdick's Associate to Be Experimented On
The wooden trough, borrowed for the occasion from Jasper Wilcox’s hog-lot, contained a solution of copper sulphate. The telegraph company, through the agency of Hi Scruggs, the local operator, had loaned the batteries; and Moses Galblat had contributed the slab of copper junk to be used for the anode—in consideration of the sum of four dollars and eighteen cents.
Everything was ready and at the quiet word of command from the chief engineer of The International Electro-Galvanic Undertaking Corporation, Mr. Stetzle quickly divested himself of his clothing and assisted Mr. Fosdick, who briskly began to powder the rotund form with graphite.
"Makes me look like a nigger—I—I suppose it will come off all right," remarked Mr. Stetzle dubiously.
"Certainly. It's just a matter of a little soap and water," said the inventor, smiling as he caught a distorted reflection of himself upon the highly polished surface of Mr. Stetzle's stomach. "Sure. No doubt about it."
It was the work of only a few minutes for Mr. Fosdick to pose Mr. Stetzle in the plating bath.
"You will represent the Winged Mercury, one of the finest examples of ancient Greek art," said Mr. Fosdick, arranging the legs and arms as he had seen them in the illustration in the back of a dictionary. "I can make some little wings and solder them to your ankles afterwards."
Mr. Stetzle, thoroughly resigned to submit to anything, made no comment.
"And now," said Mr. Fosdick, "I'll just lock you up in the shop for an hour while I go out and fix the Widow Johnson's doorbell, and put in a window at Sam Horton's, and get Lem Hunter's umbrella what’s busted, and needs mending, and do a few other little odds and ends."
The Object Experimented on—the Unhappy Mr. Stetzle—Has Fallen Asleep During the Process
It was late in the afternoon when Mr. Fosdick returned to the shop. His errands had taken him much longer than he had supposed.
In the trough lay Mr. Stetzle, snoring. The afternoon had been hot and the cooling influence of the plating bath had been more than he could resist. Flies had bothered him at first, and in his endeavors to brush them off he had saturated his face and hair with the copper solution and Mr. Fosdick was somewhat startled to see that it had turned them a dark green.
"Wake up, Eben!" Mr. Fosdick punched the recumbent form with a broom handle. It was like punching a stone; Mr. Stetzle's ribs were incased in a quarter-inch armor of solid copper.
A tweak of the green nose brought better results, and Mr. Stetzle opened his eyes and endeavored to stir. There was not the slightest movement.
It was the work of an hour, perhaps, and Mr. Stetzle had begun to become petulant. But in the end, with the aid of a block and tackle, Mr. Fosdick had succeeded in lifting him out of the trough and had balanced him on one foot—a Winged Mercury of bright, shining copper.
"Splendid!" he ejaculated, and he gazed at his handiwork admiringly. "I'll get some of the boys down here to-morrow with old Judge Henley and we'll get up the incorporation papers in no time."
"To-morrow!" yelled Mr. Stetzle with a sudden and fierce indignation. "Do you think I'm going to stand here on one foot all night like a dodgasted cigar store Indian? Not on your life! I've got complimentary tickets for 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' for this evening and I've got to take Mrs. Stetzle and the children. Now you get me out of this dodgasted boiler plate union suit right now!"
Mr. Fosdick scratched his chin reflectively. "All right, Eben," he soothed. "I'll split you up the back and you can scrawl out like a locust. The shell will demonstrate the success of the idea." He picked up a pair of calipers and applied it to various portions of Mr. Stetzle's anatomy. "I should say that the metallic envelope is from a quarter to a half inch thick," he remarked pensively.
“You quit that figurin’ and get me out,” raged Mr. Stetzle. “I ought to have had more sense after fooling with your dodgasted electrified cats and spending ten days on a foot square insulated galvanometer pier endurin’ the grins of all them dodgasted students.”
With great labor Mr. Fosdick managed to lower Mr. Stetzle to the floor, and then with a cold chisel and hammer he began the work of divesting him of the metal that incrusted him. With every blow of the hammer Mr. Stetzle let forth a groan.
“That chisel is going right into my backbone!”
The Subject in Trouble—Trying to Get Him Out of His Metallic Casing
Mr. Fosdick considerately laid aside the chisel and took up a hacksaw. It was slow work. Supper time came, it grew dark, and notwithstanding the lamentations and curses of Mr. Stetzle, the now somewhat alarmed Mr. Fosdick had only cut a groove of about six inches along Mr. Stetzle's spine.
"Dodgast you!" he bellowed. "I've missed my supper, I've missed the opry, and I'm missing my sleep!"
"Why, Eben, I'll get you a pillow and you can sleep while I work."
"Sleep!" ejaculated Mr. Stetzle hotly. "How in thunder can I sleep with you a hammerin' my vitals and a punchin' into my backbone with a dodgasted cold chisel?"
At dawn the thoroughly exhausted Mr. Fosdick began to despair. "I'm afraid, Eben," he said gravely, "that I'll have to crate you up and ship you down to the city where they have steam hammers and hydraulic jacks and things—unless—unless"—why hadn't he thought of it before—"unless I can take the metal off the same way I put it on."
"Do anything," snarled Mr. Stetzle. "Put me under a steam hammer, rip me open with a hydraulic jack, grind me apart on an emery wheel, blow me open with dynamite, melt me apart with an acetylene blowpipe—do any of the dodgasted things you have been talking about!"
(Continued on page 476)
