DOODLE'S DISCOVERY
John Jefferson Doodle derived a large amount of pleasure from the knowledge that he was considered a crank. In Doodle's opinion cranks were persons who, knowing the right way, refused to have things done in any other. John Jefferson demanded full value for his own money and persisted in giving the same in return for the money of others. Business back-steps, fool fakery, and lame excuses were foreign to his methods, so when he opened his restaurant success was assured. Doodle's was the most up-to-date café in the entire eating zone. The food, service and appointments were of the best, and from the opening day the future prosperity of Doodle was something that a fifth-rate prophet could foretell without running the risk of a headache.
But Doodle's Café was in the direct line of a trouble cyclone. In the washrooms connected with the establishment the proprietor supplied the finest toilet soap that money could buy, but unfortunately for the peace of mind of John Jefferson he was called upon to supply much more than legitimate demands required. Expensive soap proved a tempting bait to unprincipled patrons, and Doodle soon discovered that something like forty dollars' worth of soap was required to meet the daily demands of his six hundred patrons. Legitimate hand-washing could not possibly be responsible for this enormous outlay, so Doodle set his brain the task of devising a plan by which the thieves could be detected.
As all the world knows, various ingenious schemes have been tried with the object of protecting the soap in the washrooms of hotels and restaurants. The cakes have been chained to the wash-stands, for example, only to be cut away by well-to-do people who take things as they come. Again, hotel proprietors have put up liquid soap in fixed contrivances, but the kleptomaniacs outwitted the vigilance of the worried owners. The soap was carried away in bottles, and the unfortunate proprietors, finding it impossible to circumvent the ingenuity of the thieves, furnished common soap in large quantities as the only means of lessening their loss.
But Doodle continued to buy the finest toilet soap that was on the market, and he was determined that no thief would make him change his methods. On this account he set his wits to work and Doodle's Soap Thief Detector was the result.
The café owner was in rapture over his invention. Its ability to do all that he claimed for it was beyond question. He had it patented, fitted to the wash-stands, and then awaited results.
The Detector was a simple contrivance. It consisted of a small kodak-like arrangement concealed behind the mirror that hung above each washbowl, the eye of the camera being hidden among the electric light fixtures. The picture-taking device was connected with the soap tray in such a manner that a person lifting the soap relieved the pressure upon a button in the bottom of the tray and was by this means immediately photographed by the unseen instrument. When the soap was replaced a self-developing film was moved up in readiness to snap the next person who lifted the tablet, but if it was not replaced the photographic apparatus stopped working and the picture of the soap thief was, therefore, the last on the film.
Doodle gave orders to his staff to immediately report to him when they found a cake of soap missing from its tray, and on the first day he waited anxiously. John Jefferson had philanthropic ideas and he considered the exposure of a soap thief an act for the benefit of the community. He had not long to wait. Dinner had scarcely begun when a cake of soap was reported missing and the proprietor immediately stepped to the washroom and took the film from its place of concealment. The last snapshot was that of a well-dressed middle-aged man, and Doodle, with the long film in his hand, walked down the big dining-room in search of the original. At the very last table he found his man, and, leaning over, addressed him.
"Pardon me," he said, quietly, touching an overcoat that hung near the customer, "is this your overcoat?"
The diner nodded.
"Then," continued John Jefferson, "will you kindly take out of the pocket the cake of soap you took from the wash-stand a few moments ago?"
The accused man grew red in the face and indignant, but Doodle was persistent.
"Very well," he said, when the customer refused to comply with the request, "I will take it out myself. It belongs to me."
He inserted his hand in the pocket of the overcoat and drew forth the missing soap wrapped in one of the small hand towels also belonging to the establishment.
"As I thought," commented Doodle. "A wet piece of soap calls for a dry wrapper, and I suffer doubly. Now, sir, you had better keep quiet. I have the picture of the fellow who took the soap, and that picture is yours." He pushed the film before the eyes of the astonished diner and that person immediately grabbed his hat and coat, paid his check, and fled.
The Thief Detector did good work on its first day. Twenty-seven prominent citizens were among those detected, and the machine finished up the day's work by photographing the mayor of the city, who was accompanied by three ladies. The official blustered when Doodle made the accusation, but, like the others, was forced into a corner when confronted with the tell-tale film, and he drew a cake of soap from his pocket when the proprietor threatened to call an officer.
In ten days Doodle had recovered thirteen hundred and eleven cakes of soap, or, more correctly speaking, he had recovered several cakes thirteen hundred and eleven times from the same number of soap thieves, who were ignorant of the fact that their theft had been recorded by the unseen instrument. And in no single instance had the Detector made a mistake.
But Doodle found that the detection of soap thieves was a costly business. The thirteen hundred and eleven customers detected in the act of purloining the cakes of soap did not return, and each day made matters worse. The Detector's average decreased as the patrons fell away, but each day it scored its victims.
And Doodle was determined. He had made up his mind that he would not allow a man who paid seventy-five cents for a dinner to carry off forty cents' worth of soap, and the moment the machine registered a thief John Jefferson lost no time in making the accusation and recovering the stolen property.
On the twenty-fifth day after the installation of the invention Doodle had but ten customers to dinner, and before the meal was over John Jefferson Doodle retired to his office, and throwing himself into a chair spent some two hours in considering the situation. He then arose and acted with sudden energy. He dictated a lengthy telegram and after seeing that it was immediately dispatched, he drafted a circular and had it typewritten. Then, with a satisfied expression upon his face, he sat down and awaited events.
And he had not long to wait. Two hours after the dispatch of the wire a fat man walked into the dining-rooms and asked for the proprietor. John Jefferson inclined his head and motioned the stranger to a seat.
"I am the president of the International Toilet Soap Trust," said the newcomer eagerly, "and I came in response to your peculiar telegram. It is a trifle vague, and we want more information regarding the matter you mentioned."
John Jefferson Doodle stood up, and without speaking led the way to the washroom. With a grim smile upon his face he explained the mechanism of the Soap Thief Detector to the president of the International Toilet Soap Trust, and the fat man breathed heavily.
"There is nothing vague about this," sneered Doodle. "What I wired you is the truth. Nine out of every ten people who steal soap from hotels and restaurants never buy toilet soap. Therefore, the more thieving the more soap you will sell us, and it stands to reason that you do not wish the Thief Detector to come into general use."
"Into general use?" queried the visitor.
"Yes," snapped Doodle. "I'm going to have this circular printed, which tells the whole story in plain language. If every hotel, café, and boarding-house uses one—but, there, read it, and then I'll talk terms with you."
The president of the International Toilet Soap Trust leaned back in his chair and read the document, then he did some rapid figuring on the back of an envelope.
"What are your terms?" he asked sullenly.
"A quarter of a million for all rights," cried Doodle. "If you don't want it I guess that every member of the Hotel, Restaurant and Boarding House Union will feel glad when they get my circular. There are over two hundred thousand members, and the trifling sum of five dollars a head will yield me over a million."
The other stood silent for a moment, regarding the face of John Jefferson with his keen gray eyes.
"I couldn't do it on my own responsibility," he said at last.
"Get busy on the long-distance 'phone," suggested Doodle. "Call a special meeting of directors and explain matters, and I'll await the decision. If your people don't buy, I'll promise you that the Great Soap Thief Detector will be known from Mindanao to Baffin's Bay inside three months."
Three hours afterwards the fat man returned, and picking up a pen he wrote a check in favor of Doodle for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which he exchanged for a deed, conveying all rights in the Detector. He then stepped into the washroom, tore the picture machine from its hiding place, disconnected the wires leading to the soap tray, and ripped the film into a thousand pieces.
"I've seen enough of that thing," he growled angrily. "'Cleanliness is next to Godliness,' and the man who stops another man from stealing soap is running pretty near the sin line, I take it."
Then, with a final snort of disgust, he went out into the street, and the doors of Doodle's Famous Dining-rooms were closed. Doodle the Crank was happy and—rich.