Life — September 15, 1921 — page 13: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

September 15 business. Tompkins is one of the few Inventors of my ac- quaintance and he, too, has fallen on dark days. Try as he will he can’t think of anything to invent. He has a perfectly corking labora- tory up on Morningside Heights, full of retorts and test tubes and double-boilers and all sorts of dangerous chemicals, and there he sits, mulling about, day after day, hoping against hope that he will make some frightiul scientific blunder that will bring him ever- lasting fame. If he could even invent a new smell I think he would die happy. “Sometimes I am tempted to give up,” he said to me, brokenly. “Twenty years of effort and what have I to show for it? . . . The Tompkins Synthetic Oyster!” He laughed fiendishly. The Tompkins Oyster, I might ex- plain, is a synthetic product which pre- serves in perpetuity the appetizing gelatinous appearance of a live Cotuit. A dream that will come true While not precisely edible it serves ad- mirably as a table decoration and has been a heavy seller in economical sub- urban communities where certain mem- bers of every family are expected to cast up their eyes and say, “You know I “Hello, George; who’s your friend?” “Here’s where I get even. : He’s my landlord and I have him eight down,” 11 never eat oysters; they are simply poison to me,” or other appropriate remarks. There is also a_ steady demand from such restau- rants and tea rooms as dis- play a tasty luncheon in their show windows, whcre the Tompkins Oyster has practically displaced the real thing which so soon acquires a glazed and de- feated expression. It is ac- tually the Tompkins Oyster which has made Tompkins’ research work possible, but it is far from satisfying the ambition of my inventive friend. “There is no great principle involved,” he says with a sigh, and I have to admit that he is right. Aroused His Curiosity Artist: Now, here’s a picture—one of my best, too—I’ve just finished. When I started out I had no idea what it was going to be. Frienp: After you got through, how did you find out what it was? 1 ‘3 AB. FRosm comicbooks.com