Now, Farmer wasn’t much of an editor, even as editors go. The one useful quality he had was a homespun, ingratiating air which put nervous young geniuses at their ease, so that they could give a reasonably coherent verbal picture of what their books were about. This often saved Stein, Fine & Bryans a lot of reading of unpublishable manuscripts. At least, that had been the theory when they gave Farmer the job; as it worked out, John Andrew was a person who found it virtually impossible to say “no”; he generally took the manuscripts in hand and, when he couldn’t stick some other member of the firm with the task, read them himself until the wee hours.
Farmer was not able to say no to Ray, but even he looked dubious at the small gray fellow’s voluble outpouring of pseudo-scientific jargon. Ray, made sensitive by years of open skepticism on the part of many listeners, caught the look and insisted on a demonstration of his fabulous invention.
So the oddly assorted pair—quick, foxlike little Ray and big, awkward, uncomfortable Farmer—sputtered out into Long Island Sound in an indescribable old motor launch, and the adventure was on.
Finally Ray shut off the racketing engine and let out the rusty anchor. He opened a large wooden case, which showed evidence of some really good cabinet-work, and took out a peculiar machine, which showed evidence of unarguably excellent machining. These details were the first things that made Farmer think Ray might not be a complete crackpot, after all. If he hadn’t been feeling just the slightest touch of seasickness, John Andrew would have breathed a sigh of relief.
Ray polished off the somewhat rabbit-from-hatty routine by bringing out a portable television set, connecting it to the boat’s electrical generator, and stringing an assortment of wires between it and his invention. He would not allow Farmer very close to the latter, but to the editor’s untechnical eye it looked like a fairly ordinary radio set, with more than enough dials and switches added to it to furnish the dashboards of several Rolls Royces.
Ray held up a hand—purely for drama, since there was silence already. “This is a great moment in the course of human history,” he said. “You are about to witness the first demonstration of Ray’s Ray, the work of genius which will allow mankind his first really close contact with the last remaining frontier on his home planet—the bottom of the sea!”
Farmer looked impressed, then began to realize what some of this meant. He caught himself, straightened out his face, and licked his lips. “You mean you’ve never tried the thing before?” he protested. “How do you know it will work?”
Ray’s glance took on a touch of icy fury. The launch rocked gently in the swell for a long, silent minute, and Farmer began to feel slightly afraid. Was he alone, in a spot like this, with a madman? The salty breeze turned colder.
Then Ray smiled—a smile that was surprisingly soft and sweet. John Andrew reached two decisions: that he was safe, and that he liked the “Judge.” (One of Farmer’s weaknesses, in fact, was that—though thoroughly masculine himself—he completely distrusted women, and was too trusting with men.)