“An Herrn Doktor Thomas Haldane.
“Lieber Professor:—Es geht mir an den tod—” She had gone thus far in the German, when she glanced up and saw my uncomprehending face. “The German too much for you?” she asked. “I’ll translate.” She went on rapidly in English.
“To Doctor Thomas Haldane.
“Dear Professor:
“I am about to die. My physician tells me that I have less than a month left to work. I have just completed the apparatus which had engaged my attention exclusively for the last six years,—my wave-measuring machine. By means of this machine, any wave of a given intensity may be registered as regards its velocity and power.”
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to break in right there,” I interrupted.
“Go on,” said Tom.
“What kind of waves is he talking about? Is this some sort of a machine for measuring the tides down on the beach, or what is it?”
Tom laughed. “Not exactly,” he said. “Denckel’s machine is to measure waves like those of electrical energy. You know, don’t you, that we believe wireless messages go from one station to another by means of ether waves, as they call them?”
I nodded.
“Well, Denckel means to measure waves of that kind, and waves that would come from an arc lamp or a dynamo or a piece of radium or anything like that. It’s to measure the same sort of wave that charged the reflectoscopes, in short—See?”