"I've no doubt it would," said the Idiot; "but I could afford a ton of coal at five hundred dollars if my scheme worked. A successful invention would make bread seem cheap at ten dollars a loaf. There's another thing I should put my mind on, and that is a method of cooking a cauliflower so that everybody in the house, as well as the neighbors, should not know that you are doing so," he continued. "I am particularly fond of cauliflower, but it is undeniable that in the process of cooking it becomes obtrusive, almost to the point of ostentation. I've spoken about it many times. Mike, the gardener, to whom I've spoken on the subject, thinks the cauliflower itself, if sprinkled with _eau de Cologne_ while growing, would cease to be obnoxious in the cooking; but that is too expensive a process. It would take a dozen cases of _eau de Cologne_ to bring a single cauliflower to maturity. My son, Tommy, has stated that he thinks it might be boiled in Florida-water instead of in the simple variety that comes from the pipes. A good suggestion for a small boy, but also expensive. Hired men and small boys do not think of the exchequer of the principal in their plans. They don't have to. Their allowance and wages are usually all velvet--an elegant vulgarism for surplus--and for my own part I have constantly to veto their little schemes for the betterment of my condition in order to have any condition at all left. But as far as the arrangement of an odorless cauliflower-cooker is concerned, it is as simple as A B C, barring one or two complications." "I wish you'd hurry up and invent it," cried Mrs. Idiot, with enthusiasm. "What are the main features of this simple contrivance?" "I'd have a boiler, in the first place, in which to boil the animal," said the Idiot. "When the water was ready I'd clap the creature into it, and before it had time to remonstrate I'd fasten a hermetically sealed cover over the top." "But when you took it off the results would still be overpowering," said Mr. Pedagog. [Illustration: "'FINDING OUT WHAT IS BEING COOKED FOR DINNER'"] "No, my dear sir," said the Idiot, "for the simple reason that I should affix a cold-air box and a flue to the hermetically sealed boiler. Through the cold-air box fresh air would constantly flow into the boiler. Through the flue all the aromatic drawbacks of the cauliflower would be carried off through the chimney into the upper air. Anybody who wished to know whether we were going to have cauliflower for dinner or not would have to climb up to the roof and sniff at the chimney-top to find out." "It _is_ simple, isn't it, Mrs. Idiot?" Mrs. Pedagog said. "Very," replied Mrs. Idiot. "Indeed, it seems so extremely simple that I should like to know where the complications lie." "Where all the complications in cooking lie, my dear," said the Idiot, "in the cook. The chief complication would lie in getting a cook who could, or if she could, would, use the thing intelligently."