He was too late. His yell was covered by the explosive sneeze. A hurricane of wind blasted at the tiny theater. A window went out in back, and Martin Hammer's toupee left for Kansas.
As the echoes died, Tim Woodart said, "That's what I meant."
Hammer blinked. "I'd hate to pull an Alfred Hitchcock and have a .45 pointed at the audience—close-up."
Back of him, the photographer looked at the stage and made a quick estimate. "That," he said, "would hurl a nine-foot slug of lead at the audience!"
Tim Woodart left quietly.
Tim Woodart led Jenny Foster to a small table and ordered Martinis. Jenny smiled at him and said: "Tell me how you came to invent this thing?"
"Easy," he grinned. "I'm an avid reader of science-fiction and there was a yarn in one of the leading magazines some time ago that dealt with a matter transmitter. Written by a crackpot electronics engineer by the name of George O. Smith. He was rather explicit in a vague sort of way, but it gave me the initial idea, and here we are with it!"
She laughed. "Is this character going to get any royalty?"
"Oh," said Tim Woodart expansively, "I offered him some, but he refused, saying that his idea was nothing but a fiction idea and that any bright engineer would know how to send matter by radio."