"No wonder you got a shock!" exclaimed the young inventor. "You didn't get all the thousand volts, for part of it was shunted off; but you got a good charge, all right. So that's what did the business; eh? It was the combination of the two electrical circuits that sent the photograph over the wire."
"I understand it now, Rad; but you did more than I've been able to do. I never, in a hundred years, would have thought of switching on that current. It never occurred to me. But you, doing it by accident, brought out the truth. It's often that way in discoveries. And Koku was standing in the other telephone booth, near the plate there, when you switched in this current, Rad?"
"Yas, sah, Massa Tom. He were. An' yo' ought t' see him hop when he heard mah voice yellin' at him. Ha! ha! ha!"
Eradicate chuckled at the thought. Then a pain in his shocked arm made him wince. A wry look passed over his face.
"Yas, sah, Koku done jump about ten feet," he said. "An'--an' den I jump too. Ain't no use in denyin' dat fact. I done jump when I got dat shock!"
"All right, Rad. You may go now. I think I'm on the right track!" exclaimed Tom. "Come on, Ned, we'll try some experiments, and we'll see what we can do."
"No shocks though--cut out the shocks, Tom," stipulated his chum.
"Oh, sure! No shocks! Now let's get busy and improve on Eradicate's Angel Gabriel system."
Tom made a quick examination of the apparatus.
"I understand it, I think," he said. "Koku was near the plate in the other booth when Rad put on the double current. There was a light there, and in an instant his likeness was sent over the wire, and imprinted on this plate. Now let's see what we can do. You go to that other booth, Ned. I'll see if I can get your picture, and send you mine. Here, take some extra selenium plates along. You know how to connect them."