"I know," I said, "I know, but where would any of them have got hold of a thing like this?"
"They could have invented it," he said stoutly.
"You mean like Balmer and Phog Relapse running the Michelson experiment in their cellar, and making it come out that there is an ether drift, only it's down?"
He bristled. "No, I certainly don't—"
"Or like Lobbard discovering Scatiology?"
"Ptah! No! Like Watt, like Edison, Galileo—" He thumbed down three fingers emphatically. "—Goodyear, Morse, Whitney—"
Down below, the meeting had taken less than five minutes to confirm Samwitz as chairman. I think the chandelier helped; they ought to install one of those in every parliamentary chamber.
The chair recognized Punchy, who said sweetly that the first order of business ought to be to get opinions from the people who knew something, beginning with Werner Kley.
Werner accordingly made a very charming speech, full of Teutonic rumbles, the essence of which was that he didn't know any more about this than a rabbit. He suggested, however, that pictures should be taken. There was a chorus of "Tom!" and Jones staggered forward with his war-cry: "There isn't any film in it!"
Somebody was dispatched to get film; somebody else trotted out to telephone for reporters and cameramen, and three or four other people headed in a businesslike way for the men's room.