“Do you want me to go back there and do it over?” asked Ned. “I’m willing, if you say so,” and he started for the room he had just left—a room wherein, under the focused rays of a battery of powerful lights and close to a box containing a strange assortment of tubes and transmitters, Ned had done his “stunt,” which consisted of singing and dancing about on a small stage. He performed alone—there was no audience but the distant one of Tom Swift in his laboratory several hundred feet away.
“Wait a minute, Ned!” Tom Swift called sharply, when his chum, who was also the financial manager of the Swift Construction Company, was about to leave the room. “I guess we might as well call it a day’s work and quit.”
“A night’s work, you mean!” retorted Ned, pointing to the window which reflected the darkness outside. “Must be past twelve.”
“I guess it is,” admitted the young inventor, somewhat wearily. “I didn’t notice. It’s a shame to keep you at it so long, Ned.”
“Oh, I don’t mind!” said the other quickly. “Not as long as it’s going to be a success. But is it?”
Tom Swift hesitated, looked at the complicated machine in front of him and slowly shook his head.
“Frankly, Ned, I can’t say,” he admitted. “You came through in a measure. Of course I heard you plainly enough over the radio—that part is simple enough. But the picture of you was too shadowy to be satisfactory. It’s coming, though. I’ll make it come!” and Tom, in spite of his weariness, showed some fighting spirit in his voice and manner.
“Could you identify me there?” and Ned pointed to that burnished metal mirror with its covering of glass in the lower edge of which were fused several wires.
“Oh, yes, I knew it was you, Ned, of course. But, as I say, the projected picture was too visionary. It didn’t stand out clearly and with depth the way I want it to. It was like a moving picture when the man up in the booth goes to sleep on the job and the projector gets out of focus. I’m rather disappointed.”
“I don’t mind going back and going through my stunt again, even for the fifty-first performance,” offered Ned, with enthusiasm. “I don’t care how late it is. Helen won’t expect me now.”