Doctor Wood. Modern Wizard of the Laboratory: The Story of an American Small Boy Who Became the Most Daring and Original Experimental Physicist of Our Day-but Never Grew Up

It was now the spring of 1896. Wood planned to return to America, but was in no hurry about it because he was confident he’d be able to get a post to his liking. Among the friends he had made in Berlin was that strange chap known to the magazine and newspaper editors as Josiah Flynt, to his tramp and hobo cronies as “Cigarette”, and to his deploring family as Frank Willard. This talented and celebrated souse — whose fame rested almost as much on his drinking as writing — was none other than the nephew and namesake of Frances Willard, president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union! Well, here was a summer coming on, with no rush to get back to the States, and this brilliant and friendly if ill-assorted pair of wild geese got it into their heads that they’d like to go for a joy ride — on the new Trans-Siberian Railway, then in process of construction.

Chapter Five.

Wild-Goose Flight to Siberia — and Return from Studies Abroad to a Job in Wisconsin

Young Frank Willard, better known by the pen name of Josiah Flynt, under which he had done hobo articles for the Century and Harper's, had a newspaper commission in the early summer of 1896 to write articles on the Pan-Russian Exposition and Fair at Nizhni Novgorod, and on the Trans- Siberian Railway, then in process of construction. He thought it would be nice if Rob accompanied him. Rob thought so too, but the expense, in terms of transportation alone, if it had to come out of his own pocket would be (as the Scotch say) damnable.

Josiah Francis Temperance Union Willard Flynt had six more drinks, one for each of his names and pseudonyms, and concocted a Machiavellian scheme. For himself, he had already managed to wangle a personal letter from Prince Hilkorff of the Russian Ministry of Railways, giving him limitless first- class transportation and directing all railway officials to favor him in every possible way. His proposal was that Rob become the self-appointed correspondent of an imaginary American newspaper and obtain a similar free joy ride over the longest new railroad on earth. Wood’s New England conscience couldn’t quite be stretched to the point of inventing an imaginary newspaper — but he recalled that he’d once written a couple of pieces for the San Francisco Examiner. So he closed his eyes while Willard had some handsome cards printed, and salved his conscience by deciding that he actually would do some articles for the Examiner and supply copies to the Russian authorities in honest return for the transportation[4]. All necessary passes, documents, and visas were obtained.

And then it turned out that Rob was also to help in a spot of amateur smuggling! It seemed that Willard had previously visited Count Tolstoy, and had promised, at the great man’s piteous request, to smuggle in for him a dozen or so of his works which had been published in Berlin but were banned in Russia. Tolstoy had never seen them in type. It was a serious offense, even for a foreigner, to smuggle them in.

The books were duly purchased and hidden in the luggage, and as they approached the Russian frontier, the two conspirators tied the thick, paper-bound volumes beneath their coats, like life preservers, around their chests and middles, with heavy twine. There was an awful moment at the customhouse when police guards in full uniform, with long sabers hanging from their belts, came down the line “frisking” everyone by vigorous slaps. By the grace of God they were fortunately spared this ordeal, possibly on account of the contrast between their more or less respectable appearance and that of the muzhiks, small merchants, gypsies, and other assorted riffraff who had piled their belongings on the long benches of the customhouse.

On reaching Moscow, they made contact with Chekhov. He was a friend of Willard’s but scarcely known outside Russia at that time. They gave Chekhov the contraband volumes for Tolstoy “in the dark of the moon”, and he subsequently delivered them via the “underground railway”.

For the rest of their trip, I can’t do better than hand Wood the microphone. He tells it well.

Willard had some business with the American Consul in Moscow, and before starting for Siberia we went to see him. We found him in an old dark, dirty office on a second floor, sitting at a roll-top desk over which hung his framed credentials, ornamented with a screaming American eagle and covered with flyspecks. He was apparently Teutonic and could neither speak nor understand English. How he communicated with Washington, if he ever did, was a mystery. Willard had a letter from our Ambassador in Berlin to the Ambassador in St. Petersburg, and hoped for an opportunity to have a word or two with Czar Nicholas. What we got, in deep, guttural disapproval, was:

“Who are you, that you should ask to see THE — GREAT — WHITE — CZAR!”