“I’ll say I’m shown!” declared Rawlins. “Darndest thing I ever saw! Just look here, Mr. Pauling. Drop something on the table there.”
Rather curiously, Tom’s father drew a coin from his pocket and dropped it on the table as suggested and at the resounding bang that followed he uttered an exclamation of amazement and involuntarily jumped back.
“You don’t mean to say that was the sound of a dime dropping?” he cried. “Why, it’s simply marvelous—absolutely uncanny.”
“Now don’t you believe you could hear a fly walk?” demanded Tom of Rawlins.
“You bet, and a mosquito sneeze!” replied the diver. “I’ll wager you could hear a man write his own name.”
Drawing a pencil from his pocket he wrote his name upon the paper covering the table, and all gasped in wonder as each stroke of the pencil came to their ears in grating, reverberating howls.
“Ah ha!” ejaculated Mr. Henderson who had approached unseen. “So you’ve found the magic in the crystals! But I’d wager you haven’t found all the wonders they contain yet. I suppose you haven’t a phonograph on board?”
“One of the men has,” replied the naval operator. “Shall I fetch it, sir?”
“Yes, if you will,” said Mr. Henderson. “I’ll show you a singing crystal in a moment, and there’s another thing. These crystals possess another remarkable property—they generate electricity.”
“Generate electricity!” cried Tom in puzzled tones. “How can they do that?”