A Bewitched Beefsteak

A BEWITCHED BEEFSTEAK.

Inventor Tripler's Funny Caper In a Boston Restaurant.

Charles E. Tripler, the famous experimenter in liquid air, recently went to Boston to visit his friend, Elihu Thompson, the electrical expert. He took with him a can of liquefied air. It was a simple looking can and might have held baked beans or cold coffee, so far as its outward appearance went. But it contained a fluid so cold that a cake of ice acts on it like fire on water. It makes it boil. It is so cold that it freezes alcohol stiff and turns mercury into a substance hard enough to drive nails with. It was a quart of the coldest thing on earth that Mr. Tripler had in his tin can, and he took it with him to luncheon, where he put it on the floor by his chair. They lunched in a hotel cafe and ordered a steak. After it had been brought in and while the waiter's back was turned Mr. Tripler lifted it from the platter, opened the can and exposed the meat to the liquid air. When he put it back on the platter, it was as hard as a rock.

"Waiter." called Mr. Tripler, "come here!" The waiter obeyed.

"What's the matter with this steak?" he asked anxiously.

And he lifted it from the plate by two fingers and struck it with his knife. The frozen meat rang like a bell.

"I d-d-on't k-n-now. sir," he faltered, and he started for the head waiter on the run.

Mr. Tripler, by the way, is one of the fiercest looking men in the inventing business. His mustache is of the pirate cut, and his eyebrows bristle and meet in the middle. Therefore the head waiter approached him with almost timidity.

"Do yon serve your steaks like this as a rule?" asked Mr. Tripler as he struck the time of day on it.

"It's that fool chef," explained the head waiter as he started for the kitchen.

A few minutes later the chef appeared with the head waiter. He recognized the steak by sight at once. Then Mr. Tripler took it up and made it ring again.

"Mercy! Gracious!" ejaculated the chef, piously crossing himself. "I did not do it, sure."

Then Mr. Tripler smiled, and Mr. Thompson laughed. A new steak was ordered, and the frozen one was carried below to fool the rest of the kitchen.

--Philadelphia Evening Post