'Say, you've come a long way to see nothing, young man,' he remarked.
'I have had the pleasure of meeting you, sir,' Lavendale replied politely, 'and, after all, I never believed the things they were saying in London.'
'What were they saying?' Mr. Moreton demanded brusquely.
'There was a report there when I left,' Lavendale answered, 'that you had learnt at last the secret of handling electricity by wireless, handling it, I mean, in destructive fashion.'
'Oh! they said that, did they?' Mr. Moreton observed, smiling to himself.
'To be absolutely exact,' Lavendale went on, 'they said that you had professed to discover it. A great scientific man whom I met only a few days before I left England, however—Sir Hubert Bowden—assured me that mine would be a wasted journey because the thing was impossible.'
A suddenly changed man sat in Mr. Moreton's place. The unhealthy pallor of his skin was disfigured by dark red, almost purple patches. His eyes were like glittering beads. He struck the table fiercely with his hairy fist.
'Bowden is an ass!' he exclaimed. 'He is an ignorant numskull, a dabbler, a blind follower in other men's footsteps. Impossible to me—Moreton?'
'My dear! My dear!' his wife murmured anxiously from the other end of the table.
The inventor turned to one of the servants.