"Are you two crazy? What kind of a fool trick—?"
Ted reached down and took a pencil off the desk. "May I borrow this?" Without waiting for permission, he put the pencil carefully into the place he'd pointed the box. Half the pencil disappeared. He took his hand away. The part of the pencil still in sight didn't come with it. It stayed where it was, lying in thin air, horizontally, with no apparent support.
H. Joshua Blair goggled and turned three shades whiter. "Wha-wha-what the hell!"
"And now, if you'll try to move the pencil, the demonstration will be complete."
Like a man in a trance, Blair got up from his desk and grasped the pencil. It wouldn't move. He got red in the face and threw all his weight on it. It would neither pull nor push. It stayed where it was. Finally Blair backed away from the thing. He leaned on his desk and panted.
"You see," Ted said, "The hole goes into the fourth dimension. There's no other explanation. And the fourth dimension holds solider than concrete."
Old Blair's head was spinning, but business instinct came quickly to his rescue. "What happens," he asked, "if something in the third dimension is in the way?"
"It gets out of the way," Bill said.
Ted demonstrated. He trained the box on the visible remains of the pencil. It vanished.