Shaynor had stepped out--but a frail coil of wire
held all his attention, and he had no word for me bewildered among the
batteries and rods. The noise of the sea on the beach began to make itself
heard as the traffic in the street ceased. Then briefly, but very lucidly,
he gave me the names and uses of the mechanism that crowded the tables and
the floor.
"When do you expect to get the message from Poole?" I demanded, sipping my
liquor out of a graduated glass.
"About midnight, if everything is in order. We've got our installation-
pole fixed to the roof of the house. I shouldn't advise you to turn on a
tap or anything tonight. We've connected up with the plumbing, and all the
water will be electrified." He repeated to me the history of the agitated
ladies at the hotel at the time of the first installation.
"But what _is_ it?" I asked. "Electricity is out of my beat altogether."
"Ah, if you knew _that_ you'd know something nobody knows. It's just It--
what we call Electricity, but the magic--the manifestations--the Hertzian
waves--are all revealed by _this_. The coherer, we call it."
He picked up a glass tube not much thicker than a thermometer, in which,
almost touching, were two tiny silver plugs, and between them an
infinitesimal pinch of metallic dust. "That's all," he said, proudly, as
though himself responsible for the wonder. "That is the thing that will
reveal to us the Powers--whatever the Powers may be--at work--through
space--a long distance away.
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