Doctor Jones' Picnic. S. E. Chapman

CHAPTER I.

       Table of Contents

      "Figures Don't Lie."

      The North Pole! That spot upon earth so environed with trackless fields of unbroken snow and mountains of ice; with an atmosphere so cold that none but the bravest and hardiest of mankind can breathe it and live. And yet these apparently insuperable obstacles have but stimulated men to do and dare all things, so that they might but reach that ultima thule. In vain have our utilitarians cried, "Qui bono?" God has planted within man the spirit of lordship and domination; and, true to that spirit, he will never rest until Nature shall have yielded up to him her last secret, and his restless foot shall have trodden the wildest and farthest spot of earth. Then, and not till then, will he stand crowned "Lord of Creation."

      In this faithful history of the discovery and exact location of the North Pole, it is not necessary to bring before the reader in historical review the many illustrious names and grand heroisms of former explorers of Arctic regions. They did marvelous deeds, beyond the comprehension of those who did not actually participate in them. They sacrificed thousands of noble lives, and undoubtedly did all that could be done with the means at their command. Ah! there we have struck the keynote. The means at their command were inadequate, and nothing but failure and disaster could result from their best laid plans and efforts.

      Dr. Jonathan Jones sat in his office in the populous, thriving city of R——, situated in one of our western states. He occupied an easy chair, heels upon a low, flat-topped writing desk, newspaper in hand, reading an account of the failure of Dr. Nansen to reach the North Pole. That renowned and hardy explorer proposed reaching the spot by floating on an ice floe. We are all familiar with the fact that he did actually get to within about three hundred miles of the coveted spot, but was obliged to turn back for want of dogs and sledges.

      Dr. Jones laid the paper down with a groan. "Will they never learn?" he apostrophizingly cried to a bust of Hahnemann that rested upon a bracket in a corner of the room. "They can never get there on any such lines. I believe it to be a perfectly feasible scheme, if worked out on simple scientific principles. If I had capital, I would try it."

      He sat with the points of his extended fingers touching each its mate of the opposite hand, and mused for several moments. Suddenly he seized a pencil, and rapidly jotted down figures, lines, and characters that meant nothing to any mortal but himself.

      "Figures don't lie!" he shouted to aforesaid bust. "That depends, Doctor, on whether they are legitimately used or not. Sometimes they are made to represent the vilest untruth," said a voice behind him. The Doctor wheeled about and encountered the genial countenance of Mr. A.L. Denison.

      "Hullo! Denison. Just the man I wanted to see. Sit down."

      "What's up now, Doctor? Anyone hurt or seriously sick?" inquired Denison, as he occupied a chair.

      For answer the Doctor read aloud the account of Dr. Nansen's failure to reach the North Pole, and then said: "I do not wonder that he failed. No one will succeed upon any such lines or plans."

      "Well, Doctor, you don't suppose that anyone will ever get there and back alive, do you?"

      "Whether they will or not, I do not know; but that it is a perfectly feasible and rational undertaking, under proper conditions, I as firmly believe as I do that I am alive," and he brought his fist down upon the desk by way of emphasis with a whack that made the various loose articles in the little office rattle. Even the bust upon the bracket moved about uneasily, whether by way of approbation or not, this truthful chronicle ventures no opinion. Denison looked at the flushed face and glittering eyes of the Doctor, moved uneasily in his chair, and said: "What's up, Doctor? I never knew you to drink. Getting off?" tapping his os frontis with his forefinger significantly.

      "Denison," replied the Doctor, unheeding the innuendoes of his friend, "I tell you that I have a plan for going to, and returning from, the North Pole with perfect safety, absolute certainty, and a degree of comfort that will reduce the whole expedition to the level of a glorious picnic." Denison indulged in a long, low whistle.

      "Draw it a little milder, Doctor. Go to and return from the North Pole with perfect safety, certainty, comfort, and pleasure! What do you mean? I never heard of anything so preposterous in my life!"

      "Hitch up to the desk here, and I will