PROFESSOR'S EXPERIMENT

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1665, 27 January 1904, Page 13

PROFESSOR'S EXPERIMENT

(By “B.B.O.”)

Not on© of the professors in the great Northwestern- University knew exactly what i *&osmake of Prof. Biggins, their colleague. They knew all' about what he, had dona for the world through his study of botariy, ; and how he had diig and grubbed in the woods until he had found and given to mankind for food scan© four* hundred varieties of plants that theretofore had been considered poisonous, and yer, acknowledging the indebtedness to Prof. Biggins, the univei'sity looked at him askance. Prof. Biggins, however, apparently didn’t oare a rap what the other professors thought of him'. He knew well enough what be thought or them—that they were a , lot of misguided men who were spending their time studying the s tans, the rocks, and the four-legged beastie®, while they ought to have been doing nothing but studying the ..earth and the plants which sprang from it. > “There's only one science.” Prof. Biggins used to say to his confreres whenever he condescended to talk with them, “and that is tha science which pertains to vegetation.. You’re all wasting yaw time and the time of your pupils with This soaring into spade and) chipping chunks out- of the rooks. Get next to the leaf, the flower* and the fruit if you Would do something for mankind.”

The trustees of the Northwestern TJni-ve-rsdty paid little attention to Prof. Biggins’s strictures on his fellow linstruotors. They inwardly voted him a crank and- outwardly voted him an in- ■ crease of salary when he discovered a root that was a® edible as mashed 1 potato and much cheaper.

", They did make an attempt: once to bring about a more kindly feeling between tha “root doctor.” as the students called Biggins, and l the other faculty members, but they gave it up after they had happened to overhear a; conversation between Prof. Biggins and Prof. Starr of the astronomical department. Biggins held Stan* in contempt. He considered it little short of villainous that a man should go gazing at things oyer his head to the Ignoring of things under his feet. Inasmuch as' Starr’s study subjects: were, much farther away from earth than, those of the other professors, just so much the more did Prof. Biggins put him down as very much of a fool and something of a knave.

“The idea of that man Starr bothering about the canals on Mars, belts on Jupiter, and rings about Saturn!” the professor would say to himself. “No human being ever sustained 1 life with anything that he got from the planets, or from the stars dither, for that matter,” and!: then the professor grinned a bit grimly. Professor Biggins, with an assistant named George Dobbins, who was a .trained gardener, had been tramping the hills and woods for. mushrooms and; toadstools. Prof. Biggins was writing a book and in it he was telling men how for centuries, they had been ignoring some of the most delicate titbits in" the way of food/ that nature had provided for its children.

“We have 199 new kinds of mushrooms now, Dobbins, to put in any book,” said the professor to his gardener assistant one day. “Tin afralid there isn’t another edible kind in. all this country,

but ■: would like to find one to make the list an even 200.” “There’s the legimens tuoflora that, I found the other day. Yon say it’s poisonous and say you know it, but I think possibly it’s good to eat. I’m not finished 1 experimenting yet, and I’ll make the. two hundredth mushroom for my. book out of it. ' I know*you’ve never been wrong, Bobbins, but yon’re wrong this time. The next day ‘the newsboys were calling a newspaper' extra on the streets of the 'city. Professor Diggiins bought one.

In great headlines he saw it announced that Prof. Starr had discovered beyond the per adventure of a doubt that there was a second big comet between Mercury and the sun. The paper stated! that Prof. Starr’s name would head the fame list of the World’s astronomers. Prof. Biggins read, and ground his teeth._ “He’ll have his head higher in the air now than ever before,” he muttered. 'What are his planets against my plants? I suppose they’ll say that I’m a grubber and he’s a s-oarer.” Just then Prof. Starr came round the corner of University hall. He met Prof. Biggins face to face. To, the star-gaz-er’s utter amazement the botanist’s face was all smiles, and his hand was held out in, greeting. “Glad tlo see you, Prof. Starr, and gladder to congratulate you,” said 1 the botanist. “W© haven’t been —that is, I haven’t —very friendly. Forgive me and dine with mo tc-night in my quarters. You will, won’t you?” Prof. Starr vri the ldudly sort, and while staggered at the botanist’s geniality, -said!: “Certainly I will; certainly, gladly.”

That night Prof. Starr sat opposite Prof.. Biggins at a dinner table in the botanist’s bachelor home. There were two savory dishes before Prof. Biggins. Ho helped Prof. -Starr from one and! himself from the ether. “One of my discoveries, Starr,” said the host while his eyes shone with a sort eff feverish brightness. _ “Everybody likes mushrooms, I think, and you’ll find those choice.” ‘They’re delirious, Diggins,” answered Starr, who had half finished his portion. ; “What do you call them?” “-uegimens tuoflora,” answered Diggin®. At that instant the door opened and in cape George Dobbins, the gardener. He lieaid the words spoken by his patron, and he isaw Prcf. Starr lift, the last morsel from the dish to his lips. The gardener jumped at Prof. Starr liiklo a shot, grabbed him round the waist and fairly bolted from the room, with his burden, casting one backward look at Prof. Biggins, whose eyes were now dancing wildly. Dobbins hunted hjis charge to> _ the laboratory. A physician came in a trice and in half an hour said that Prof. would live. Over in Prof. Biggins’s quarters a man was tearing up and down the room shriekino*: “He spoiled my experiment.” Tho next day Prof. Diggins of the Northwestern University was taken to the insane asylum. The entry in t,lxe hook of the institution was, “Mind wrecked by mushrooms.”