Nick Carter Stories No. 131, March 13, 1915: A fatal message; or, Nick Carter's slender clewCarter, Nicholas (House name)
General
Nick Carter Stories No. 131, March 13, 1915: A fatal message; or, Nick Carter's slender clew
Carter, Nicholas (House name)
Detective and mystery stories, American -- Periodicals; Popular literature -- Periodicals
Cooley is the inventor of an improved system of foretelling the weather.
He has a lot of barometers, hygrometers, and such things, in his house,
and he claims that by reading these intelligently, and watching the
clouds in accordance with his theory, a man can prophesy what kind of
weather there will be three days ahead. They were getting up a
Sunday-school picnic in town in May, and as Cooley ascertained that
there would be no rain on a certain Thursday, they selected that day for
the purpose. The sky looked gloomy when they started, but as Cooley
declared that it absolutely couldn’t rain on Thursday, everybody felt
that it was safe to go. About two hours after the party reached the
grounds, however, a shower came up, and it rained so hard that it ruined
all the provisions, wet everybody to the skin, and washed all the cake
to dough. Besides, Peter Marks was struck by lightning. On the following
Monday the agricultural exhibition was to be held, but as Mr. Cooley
foresaw that there would be a terrible northeast storm on that day, he
suggested to the president of the society that it had better be
postponed. So they put it off, and that was the only clear Monday we had
during May. About the first of June, Mr. Cooley announced that there
would not be any rain until the fifteenth, and consequently we had
showers every day, right straight along up to that time, with the
exception of the tenth day, when there was a slight spit of snow. So on
the fifteenth, Cooley foresaw that the rest of the month would be wet,
and by an odd coincidence, a drought set in, and it only rained once
during the two weeks, and that was on the day which Cooley informed the
baseball club that it could play a match, because it would be clear.
On toward the first of July, he began to have some doubts if his
improved weather system were correct; he was convinced that it must work
by contraries; so when Professor Jones asked him if it would be safe to
attempt to have a display of fireworks on the night of the fifth, Cooley
brought the improved system into play, and discovered that it promised
rainy weather on that night. So then he was certain it would be clear,
and he told Professor Jones to go ahead.
On the night of the fifth, just as the professor got his Catherine
wheels and skyrockets all in position, it began to rain, and that was
the most awful storm we have had this year. It raised the river nearly
three feet. As soon as it began, Cooley got the ax, and went upstairs
and smashed his hydrometers, hygrometers, barometers, and thermometers.
Then he cut down the pole that upheld the weathercock, and burned the
manuscript of the book which he was writing in explanation of his
system. He leans on “Old Probs” now when he wants to ascertain the
probable state of the weather.
THE NEWS OF ALL NATIONS.
Scale Ounce Over Forty Years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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