The Taming of Gasoline.
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By a Man from the U.S.A.
I noticed that my health was giving way and decided to go west. You see, there are too many farmers butting into our calling, and I thought I would even up by butting into their trade.
I was getting along very nicely, planting trees, turnips, catnip berries; °sago, oranges, and other things that make glad the heart of the food percolator, when I received a dispatch from one of my friends.
The Near-Punk Motor Co. intendbd to go into the motor truck business and they needed somebody to launch it for them. Afterwards they would "lay me off" and give some of the ." push" a. chance to real') the benefit of my labour. Perhaps, they thought that my experience in the garden truck business would come in handy. How could one resist such a flattering offer? Not unless one's head is of stove iron.
So, I ordered by express, a small iceberg, big enough to cover my truck farm and good for two years.
I arrived at the scene of my. future activities in due time, and after receiving instructions from the office boy, I started out motor trucking. I am not going to hold you in suspense about the designing end, or any other such trifling details. The purchasing agent took care of that in splendid style. in return for this.kindness, I was supposed to listen to all drummers and callers who had an axe to grind.
Let me see, there was one morning a depressipg lack of beautiful sunshine, and the raindrops oozed through the roof of our modern and strictly up-todate truck factory and made quite an impression upon ourlayouts. With this pleasant scene before .me, I was sitting in my revolving chair (all motor truck engineers have revolving chairs, because it enables them to turn quickly from one design to another) thinking: "If mother could see me now, or Maggie, or Maud, or any of the girls who liked my automobile and incidentally me, too, as a necessary_ evil."
The office boy brought in a card:— The American Rik-No-Mora Skindicate, Oskaloosa, Iowa.," I read, " Col.T. Rott, Traveling Repr." "Let the guy in, and tell him to be brief,' I said.
A fellow with specs., cowboy hat, and a brisk handshake stepped in. Evidently from habit, he began at once :.." My, name is Rott, Tommy Rott, Colonel Tommy Rott, from Bowling Green, Kentucky, and my sole ambition in life is to make everyone acquainted with the greatest invention of the century. Allow me to explain the basic. foundation of this wonderful idea.
You, as well as I, are very familiar with the automobile. (In fact I am :) We know that, under certain conditions' a gasoline engine will kick back when cranked. Brilliant brains and deep thinkers have spent years at hard labour to design safety cranks with fairly good reSults. Of course, you know, there is.more than one way of killing a cat, and the safety crank has the disadvantage that it cannot he attached to old cars without a great deal of trouble. My idea was always that the kicking is due to some hydrocarbon contained in the gasoline, and after the conception of the idea, it was simply a qm.stion aft details., The idea is merely to get rid etf the kick-producing hydrocarbons. To -make the thing clear, I am going to uu an illustration. Suppose you are drunk and have 6 ins, of corn whisky over and above the capacity of your stomach. You feel dizzy, You talk the truth, no matter whether it hurts the other fellow or not. The effects of whisky could be eliminated :—(l) By extracting the alcohol, ,or by (2) using bronio-caffeine as an antidote. But, by using. the process, we Would also eliininate the exhilarating
properties which are the principal asset of that commodity.
It is similar with gasoline. I could eliminate the kicking hydrocarbons by distillation, sublimation, volatilization, refrigeration, piflication, or by filtering through seaweed soaked in clam chowder, but that• would mean butting into the Standard Oil Co.'s keepoff-the-grass sign, and you know the beautiful ballad next to your mother, who. do you love best. So I put MI farce of learned chemists on process. (2) By this method we shall design a chemical which will paralyze be kicking hydrocarbons and make them meek and Polite like a politician when-his term is nearing. expiration. I say I had them "design." We work out all our chemical' problems on the board. As soon as the' properties of the new chemical are known, we make a stress diagram, find the 'most advantageous location for the nuclei, cut the molecules to fit the circumference, string the wires with electrons, and fill out the gaps with Alpha emanations. Here his flow of eloquence stopped. With calm deliberation, he took a plug of Piper-Heidsick from his packet, carved a, piece and with two fingers placed it in a-bulge inside of his right cheek. Inwardly I was blessing—for the first time—the discoverer of the
art of chewing tobacco. I placed the spittoon within reach of the Colonel and urged him to go on. He thereupon took from his poclw.t a small package, decorated with the picture of a mule, the hind legs of which were tied with a chain limiting them to a short stroke. Underneath this wAs the usual : "Guaranteed under the Poor Feud and Dubs Act," etc.
"Now," went on the Colonel, "whenever you fill up your gasoline tank, merely drop into it the contents of this package, and, presto ! the gasoline has been tamed! No back-kicks, no backfire into the carburetter, all is one sweet long harmony, for the trifling sum of 25 cents. What is your opinion'?"
"Well, on the level," I admitted, "it looks reasonable to me, but what I want to know is—what has 1111Ur do with my concern'?"
"1'11 put you next in a jiffy," came back the Colonel. This season every automobile concern seems to be
bughouse about putting safety cranks and self-starters on the car, which naturally would cut into the sales of our speciality. We want you to leave the car without these complications and insert in your printed matter a glowing description of this wonderful invention. Naturally, we will allow you a certain percentage of our profits depending on the number of cars you sell, of course, I am unable to tell you what the man higher up is going to decide.
I forestalled further discussion on the wonderful compound by promising to refer the package to our experimental engineer and keep my eye on the proposition he had made me.
He thanked me courteously, and while closing the door turned and said, "Don't forget. to mention that the stuff works only when the spark ü retarded.