The Queer Side of Things.
ROFESSOR" WILLETT was my uncle. We saw very little of him, for he practically lived in a laboratory which he had fitted up for himself, and was devoted to some mysterious experiments which were to bring him fame and fortune at the hands of the Government. He allowed no one to enter his laboratory except a confidential assistant, who was supposed to share many of his secrets. For some time my uncle had been giving us to understand that he was perfecting an invention which he intended to offer to the Government for an enormous sum—an incredible sum, which varied on different occasions from half a million to five millions. He did not enlighten us as to the nature of the invention; and, as we had not much belief in the results which he anticipated, we were not sufficiently curious to ask about it; nay, if we had, he, being a very uncommunicative man, would probably not have told us.
Besides, we had our own affairs to attend to. Old Willett's daughter, Phoebe, and my brother John had a love affair to attend to; and it required a good deal of attention by reason of its not running smoothly; for the Professor did not like John, and was violently opposed to a marriage between Phoebe and him; and so, the matter needed much secrecy, and smuggling of love-letters, and so forth. The case seemed hopeless, however; for Phoebe was firm in her refusal to marry John in the face of her father's strong disapproval, and the father was a hale man, not likely to remove the difficulty by dying.
Amy and I had our affair, which was untroubled by the difficulty which lay upon the other, and Amy and I had been engaged for nearly a year. Amy was old Willett's other daughter—was! That terrible word "was"—it is the keynote of my whole story; there's no present tense to it.
One of the Professor's crazes was dress-sanitation: he would have none of the all-wool system, nor any other system save his own pet particular system. This system consisted of a mixture of Vicuña wool and the fibre of some South American trailing plant; and the Professor was so persuaded of its being the only material in which man could dress himself and live, that he went to a great expense in importing the materials and having them woven into stuffs of various thicknesses and textures for family use. He had a stock of this stuff: most of his own clothes were made of it, as well as such of those worn by his wife and daughters as he could persuade them to have fashioned from it. To tell the truth, these latter articles were not very numerous, as the stuffs were necessarily rather "dowdy" for overwear; while, as underwear, they became impossible, except to cover the
