Butler Ellis Parker
Solander's Radio Tomb

"And a noble one, I'm sure," I said.

"Most noble," said Mr. Solander. "But, sir, I have not confined my activities to the study chair. I have kept my eye on the progress of the world. And it seems to me that radio, this new and wonderful invention, is the greatest discovery of all ages and imperishable. But, sir, it is being twisted to cheap uses. Jazz! Cheap songs! Worldly words and music! That I mean to remedy."

"Well," I said, "it might be done. Of course, people like what they like."

"Some nobler souls like better things," said Remington Solander solemnly. "Some more worthy men and women will welcome nobler radio broadcasting. In my will I am putting aside one million dollars to establish and maintain a broadcasting station that will broadcast only my fourteen volumes of hymns and uplifting material. Every day this matter will go forth – sermons, lectures on prohibition, noble thoughts and religious poems."

I assured him that some people might be glad to get that – that a lot of people might, in fact, and that I could write that into his will without any trouble at all.

"Ah!" said Remington Solander. "But that is already in my will. What I want you to write for my will, is another clause. I mean to build, in your cemetery, a high-class and imperishable granite tomb for myself. I mean to place it on that knoll – that high knoll – the highest spot in your cemetery. What I want you to write into my will is a clause providing for the perpetual care and maintenance of my tomb. I want to set aside five hundred thousand dollars for that purpose."

"Well," I said to the sheep-faced millionaire, "I can do that, too."

"Yes," he agreed. "And I want to give my family and relations the remaining million and a half dollars, provided," he said, accenting the 'provided,' "they carry out faithfully the provisions of the clause providing for the perpetual care and maintenance of my tomb. If they don't care and maintain," he said, giving me a hard look, "that million and a half is to go to the Home for Flea-Bitten Dogs."

"They'll care and maintain, all right!" I laughed.

"I think so," said Remington Solander gravely. "I do think so, indeed! And now, sir, we come to the important part. You, as I know, are a trustee of the cemetery."

"Yes," I said, "I am."

"For drawing this clause of my will, if you can draw it," said Remington Solander, looking me full in the eye with both his own, which were like the eyes of a salt mackerel, "I shall pay you five thousand dollars."

Well, I almost gasped. It was a big lot of money for drawing one clause of a will, and I began to smell a rat right there. But, I may say, the proposition Remington Solander made to me was one I was able, after quite a little talk with my fellow trustees of the cemetery, to carry out. What Remington Solander wanted was to be permitted to put a radio loud-speaking outfit in his granite tomb – a radio loud-speaking outfit permanently set at 327 meters wave-length, which was to be the wave-length of his endowed broadcasting station. I don't know how Remington Solander first got his remarkable idea, but just about that time an undertaker in New York had rigged up a hearse with a phonograph so that the hearse would loud-speak suitable hymns on the way to the cemetery, and that may have suggested the loud-speaking tomb to Remington Solander, but it is not important where he got the idea. He had it, and he was set on having it carried out.