"Jules Verne - In the Year 2889" - читать интересную книгу автора (Verne Jules)

Smith and his wife have arranged to take their meals simultaneously. It is
delightful thus to breakfast tete-a-tete with someone 3000 miles or so away.
Just now, Mrs. Smith's chamber has no occupant.
"She is late! Woman's punctuality! Progress everywhere except there!" mutters
Mr. Smith as he turns the tap for the first dish. For like all wealthy folk
in
our day, Mr. Smith has done away with the domestic kitchen and is a
subscriber
to the Grand Alimentation Company, which sends through a vast network of
tubes
to subscribers' residences all sorts of dishes, as a varied assortment is
always
in readiness. A subscription costs money, to be sure, but the cuisine is of
the
best, and the system has this advantage, that it does away with the pestering
race of the cordons bleus. Mr. Smith receives and eats, all alone, the hors
d'oeuvres, entrees, roast meat, and legumes that constitute the repast. He is
just finishing the dessert when Mrs. Smith appears in the telephote mirror.
"Why, where have you been?" asks Mr. Smith through the telephone.
"What! You are already at the dessert? Then I am late," she exclaims, with
winsome naivete. "Where have I been, you ask? Why, at my dressmaker's. The
hats
are just lovely this season! I suppose I forgot to note the time, and so am a
little late."
"Yes, a little," growls Mr. Smith; "so little that I have already quite
finished
breakfast. Excuse me if I leave you now, but I must be going."
"Oh certainly, my dear; goodbye till evening."
Smith steps into his air-coach, which awaits him at a window. "Where do you
wish
to go, sir?" inquires the coachman.
"Let me see; I have three hours," Mr. Smith muses. "Jack, take me to my
accumulator works at Niagara."
For Mr. Smith has obtained a lease of the great falls of Niagara. For ages
the
energy developed by the falls went unutilized. Smith, applying Jackson's
invention, now collects this energy, and sells it. His visit to the works
takes
longer than anticipated. It is four o'clock when he returns home, just in
time
for the daily audience he grants to callers.
One readily understands how a man in Smith's situation must be beset with
requests of all kinds. Now it is an inventor needing capital; then it is some
visionary who comes to advocate a brilliant scheme which must surely yield
millions in profits. A choice must be made between these projects, rejecting
the
worthless, examining the questionable, accepting the meritorious. To this
work
Mr. Smith devotes two full hours a day.
The callers are fewer today than usual--just 12. Of these, eight have only