"Was there any sort of explosion?" Don asked.
"No. There wasn't any sensation at all, as far as I noticed. I was watching the late show—or trying to. My house is down in a hollow and reception isn't very good, especially with old English movies. Well, all of a sudden the picture sharpened up and I could see just as plain. Then the phone rang and it was Professor Garet."
"The old fellow with the whiskers and the riding boots?" Jen Jervis asked.
"Yes. Osbert Garet, Professor of Magnology at the Cavalier Institute of Applied Sciences."
"Professor of what?"
"Magnology. As I say, the school isn't accredited. Well, Professor Garet telephoned and said, 'Hector'—that's my name, Hector Civek—'everything's up in the air.' He was having his little joke, of course. I said, 'What?' and then he told me."
"Told you what?" Jen Jervis asked. "I mean, does he have any theory about it?"
"He has a theory about everything. I think what he was trying to convey was that this—this levitation confirmed his magnology principle."
"What's that?" Don asked.
"I haven't the faintest idea. I'm a politician, not a scientist. Professor Garet went on about it for a while, on the telephone, about magnetism and gravity, but I think he was only calling as a courtesy, so the mayor wouldn't look foolish the next morning, not knowing his town had flown the coop."