friction, been transformed into, or has produced, a physical manifestation."
His voice sank to a whisper. "It is this fact that makes my great invention possible. The friction set up produces faint currents of electricity. It is Nature's own generator. The currents are faint, weak, but they are there. And they vary in intensity in proportion as the rushing blood stream surges and ebbs. Thus they have imprinted on them all the characteristics of the thought that gives rise to them. They vary in the individual. Some minds can generate a current one hundred—yes, one thousand—times greater than others, but all minds generate to some extent.
"And these electrical impulses are thrown out into space in wave trains, exactly as the radio telegraph throws them out. This accounts for the phenomena of mental telepathy. If conditions are just right, the receiving mind in perfect tune with the transmitting mind, and sensitive enough to interpret the received impulses, you have accomplished telepathy. All that remained for me to do was to measure the intensity and characteristics of the generated current, its frequency—and it is high—and"
He paused and fixt me with that fishy stare. I didn't know just what to say, so I took a Brody. "And what, Doc? Slip it to me quick."
"And the length of the emitted wave," he comes back at me, triumphantly, "It might be one millionth of a meter or it might be one million meters. Or it might be any length between those extremes. Or beyond them, for that matter. I succeeded in making these measurements."
He laughed. Or, rather, he laughed and snarled all at once. I'm telling you straight, fellow, your hair stands on end when Proctor laughs like that.
"I fancy some of your radio experts would gape if they were permitted to see my wave meter. I believe it would cause some excitement in the laboratories of Lodge or Marconi. I—Proctor—I measured these waves which, of course, means that I found a detector for them. Our friend DeForest thinks that he has a monopoly on ultra-sensitive detectors. Proctor's detector is to the audion what a stop watch is to a wheel barrow!
"And the frequency. It is beyond the limits of audibility, as that term is understood. I wound phones that will render the received signals audible. And the task was done."
Most of that stuff had gone over, but like a lightning flash the big idea burst thru' my shrapnel-proof cranium. I fairly stuttered as I got his drift. I'll bet my eyes popped as I gaped at that machine. "Good God!" I spluttered. "Do you mean that that thing can hear you think?"
Proctor smiled the nearest to a human smile that I ever saw on his mug. "You have glimmerings of intelligence," he said, in a gratified way; "I mean just that."
And then he went off his handle again. "And I mean," he roared, "that you are to go back to the scum that sent you and tell them that it is useless for them to plot against me, for I can hear then very thoughts as they think them. I can read their miserable souls! That's how I knew you were coming here to-night! That's how I knew that your lethal weapon contained no charge! And," he seized me and shook me until my heels nearly broke my neck, "And that's how I know, you swine, that even now you don't know whether to believe me or not."
He released me and tore the telephone things from off his ears. "Here!" he bellowed, clamping them over my ears, "here! Listen, and be convinced."
He wheeled to the table and whirled knobs and dials. A continuous humming and buzzing sounded in the 'phones.
And then it happened. Listen to me close, I know they labeled Proctor "squirrel food" for telling them less than this, but This was July of 1914. Get that?
Suddenly something like a voice—no, not like a voice, either—like a voice inside my own head, if you can get me, said masterfully, with a strong German accent, "Serbia will, because she dare not submit. France must, because she will see my hand behind it. England must as a last desperate effort to save herself. But my armies will grind them like grain in the mill. And then"
Proctor tore the 'phones from me. I was like a stuffed doll and I never raised a mitt. He grabbed me, and it was just like being caught in the jaws of a vise. "You have heard," he thundered. "Now go."
The last thing I remember was that he heaved me toward the door. I remember spinning toward it. And that's all.
The next thing I remember is waking up in that hospital ward. It was July of 1914 when Proctor chucked me, and it was late August when I found myself in that hospital.
As near as I can learn I missed the door, hit the wall and a bottle of that Chero stuff got knocked off a shelf. They dug Proctor and I out of the ruins, and we were both pretty well messed up.
Proctor raved about his ruined mind machine, and it got him a pass to the squirrel cage.
If you read the papers at the time you'll remember Proctor wanted me to back him up, but I wouldn't talk. Least said, easiest remedied.
Now you got all I know about it. I spilled it once to Gentleman Joe, a high-browed crook, who soaked up all they pass you at Harvard when he was young. Joe said maybe Proctor fooled me with a camoflaged phonograph.
Maybe he did. I might think so myself if it had happened in September instead of July, 1914. Get me?
the end
