Like a flash a bright idea occurred to Johnny. “I’ll think up some good publicity,” he told himself. “Think it up just right. Then I’ll shoot that thought-camera at myself and turn out some swell copy. Old C. K. Lovell will put it in the Sentinel, I know he will.” But of this he said never a word to Doug. The thought-camera was a deep, dark secret.
“He is mysterious!” Doug exclaimed quite suddenly.
“Huh! What? Who’s mysterious?” Johnny dragged himself back to earth with a start. “Oh! Yes! That pitcher. Sure he is. Terribly mysterious.”
“The Colonel says he’s been working in the laboratories for three months,” Doug broke in. “Three months! I’ve been round the lab nearly every day, and I never once saw him, except that evening when he pitched a few over for us.”
As the boys approached the long, low building known as the laboratories, Johnny felt a thrill course up his spine. He was to see that strange pitcher. With his olive skin and bright gleaming blue eyes, this pitcher’s very movements seemed to say, “Here I am. A mystery. Solve me.”
The laboratories too held a special charm for Johnny. Here all manner of strange chemical secrets were sought out and often found. Already these laboratories were famous. Here a new drug had been discovered that had proved a great boon to those suffering from asthma. With characteristic generosity, the Colonel had given this discovery to the world, asking no profit to himself.
It was rumored that here a poison had been discovered, so powerful that it would make war impossible. One drop of it on any part of the body would mean instant death. This was only a rumor. Better founded was the statement that “heavy water”—a water in which no animal life, however small, could live—had been produced. However these things might be, both Johnny and Doug approached the place with a feeling akin to awe, for this to their growing minds was a place of great magic.
In the office of the laboratories they found awaiting them not only the Colonel, but a short, round-shouldered boy who wore heavy horn-rimmed glasses with thick lenses.
“Hello, Goggles!” Doug greeted the bespectacled boy with a hearty grin. “What you doing here? Been discovering some new element or something?”
“Johnny—” he turned to his friend. “Meet Goggles Short, the boy wizard, both chemical and electrical, of our fair city.”