"To my mind," said he, after finishing this work, and arresting a finger above a little connecting lever in the side of the receiver, "it's a very beautiful thought that underlies all this. The forces which run through this receiver will never grow tired. Labor will be a joy for them, a delight, as labor ought to be in any form. Mr. Rawn and I don't always quite agree about that," he smiled, still with his finger above the little lever. "What I hope to do is to change the working-man from being an object back into being a man, so that labor may be a joy and not a dread."
"Then we don't want it," grinned the president, feebly essaying a jest. "Mr. Rawn and I were agreed that it would do just the other thing!"
"Well, go on with it!" growled Ackerman. "I'm a busy man. To hell with the story! We want results!"
Every man present sprang back from the little instrument on the table. There came a slowly increasing purr of the motor, a series of intense blue sparks showing at the toothed points of reception. The blades of the fan began to revolve faster and faster; so fast that at length both eye and ear ceased to record their doings. Then, after sight and sound had failed to serve, there came a crash!
There was no fan on the shelf where it had stood. Fragments of metal were buried in the woodwork, in the wall. John Rawn wiped the blood from a cut on his cheek. No one said anything. It was quite commonplace, after all.
IV
"You wished to see what it would do," said Halsey grimly. "The power seems to be there. Any time you like, any amount you like. And you saw that it didn't come in here by wire—it was only transmitted from the receiver, not to it. The fan is broken, but the receiver is just the way we left it. Well, it looks as though we had settled a few questions, doesn't it?"
Standley, pale, could only gasp, "Why, it's—it's dangerous!" he said. "It's devilish! Look there!" He pointed at the blood on Rawn's face. Rawn remained silent.
"There is no use applying undue force to a minor purpose," said Halsey, "any more than there is in throwing on the high speed of a car going down hill. But our reserve is there, gentlemen, just the same. By increasing the size of our receivers we can develop power to turn any amount of machinery that can be geared together—any number of machines, large or small, at any place. I only wanted to show what the real power is in this device of ours. Our receiver is very small, you see."
They all remained silent for a time. Standley at last drew a long breath.