"HalfWorldsMeet-HughRaymond" - читать интересную книгу автора (Raymond Hugh)

his vest.
"Afternoon, Professor," he said evenly in his clipped mid-western accent. "They
told me you'd phoned about a loan."
Randolph sat down.
"Yes. I'm conducting some new experiments..."
Saunders smiled primly and looked over the top of his pince nez.
"Yes, yes. Of course. I know of your work. Some very valuable things you turned
out for the clinic. Pity you didn't patent them."
As the bank president had been one of the cabal who had swindled him out of the
proceeds of his clinical researches, Randolph tried to let this pass with as
much aplomb as was possible considering the circumstances.
"I want fifty thousand dollars," he said flatly, without further pause.
Saunders blinked his eyes twice when he heard this. The pince nez came off and
fell with a clank into his lap.
"Wha--wha--what's that ? Fifty thousand dollars?"
The Professor nodded grimly.
Saunders raised his hands in horror.
"What could you do with so much money?" he asked in a strained falsetto.
"I said that I was conducting some new experiments," replied Randolph firmly.
"Of what nature?"
"I cannot explain that until I've some concrete results to offer. But I need
enough money to buy immense quantities of lead. Once that is accomplished I feel
that anyone financially connected with the experiment would be in on a
goldmine."
"You mean that literally ?"
The Professor's face lost its serious mien.
"Yes, I do," he said, smiling. "A goldmine. Quite literally."
Saunders opened his eyes as wide as they could go and pressed a stud on his
desk. Within a minute his secretary walked in. The bank president looked up at
her with an amused smile playing about his thin lips.
"Please show the Professor out," he snapped, losing his smile almost
immediately, "I'm afraid he's slightly touched."
Randolph stared at him for a moment, then began to laugh. He waved the
astonished secretary aside and walked out.
THERE WERE no experiments for a time after that, and the box lay untouched in a
corner of the shack because it represented a trillion tons of unexploded
trinitrotoluene. He looked at it during the long autumn evenings, and sometimes
his wife came in and stood by his side and regarded the box anxiously. The
bolted top imprisoned a devil and her supple hands caressed away at such times
his desire to let it loose.
But it could not remain the same always. His machines were silent, and Charley
came over oftener now and helped him stare at the bulky object. Finally flesh
and blood collapsed. Caution flew out of the window.
He bought a telescope and rigged it up to focus on small objects such as clay
pigeons and dolls bought in the five-and-dime store in the nearby town and he
found that when his prisms shattered, a small, almost microscopic, replica lay
amid their powdered ruins. Complex physical laws governed the various reactions.
All the replicas grew slowly, in proportion to the amount of light used in
reflecting them, but faster when more vibrations were allowed to drench them. In
some unknown fashion the scanning telescope became almost a living thing,