“Give what up, Dad? You mean trying to find out who blew me up and why Ned is missing? Give those problems up?”
“No, I mean work on this new talking-picture machine of yours. I don’t believe it will ever work, Tom.”
“But it has worked, Dad!” exclaimed the young man, with enthusiasm. “Only about an hour before Ned left and the explosion happened, I got a pretty fine record of what Ned did in the theater room,” for so Tom called the apartment with its battery of bright lights where the young manager had sung and danced.
“You heard Ned’s voice?” asked Mr. Swift.
“Perfectly,” declared Tom. “Saw him, too. But the vision was not as clear as it’s got to be to make this a commercial success. But I know how to improve it, and I’m going to. I can’t give that up, Dad!”
“It might be better if you did, Tom.”
“Better? How?”
“Well, for your own safety. You’re using powerful electrical currents and you’ve had one explosion already; so——”
“But didn’t I tell you, Dad,” and Tom smiled tolerantly, “that this explosion was none of my doing? Nothing went wrong with the wires. They were all in shape and I was just opening the door when something went off. It was something that was set, too—a bomb, if I guess aright.”
“All the more reason for giving it up, Tom.”