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 gets hold of some comic transformer and sets to work; what he did is at present his secret, but in the end he will achieve the synthesis he wants. He’ll achieve it. Or at least, the oscillation will do it. Man, I shall have to go down on all fours and start learning physics in my old age; I’m talking rubbish, eh?”

Prokop muttered something completely unintelligible.

“That doesn’t matter,” said Mr. Carson calmly. “As long as it holds together. I’m dull and I imagine that it has some sort of electro-magnetic structure. If this structure is disturbed, then it disintegrates, eh? Luckily about ten thousand regular wireless stations and several hundred illegal ones preserve in our atmosphere the sort of electro-magnetic climate, the sort of—eh—eh—oscillatory bath which suits this structure. And so it holds together ”

Mr. Carson reflected for a moment. “And now,” he began again, “imagine that some devil has a means by which he can thoroughly disturb electric waves. Obliterate them or something of the sort. Imagine that—God knows why—he does this regularly on Tuesdays and Fridays at half-past ten o’clock at night. At that minute and second all wireless communication is interrupted all over the world; but at that minute and second something also happens in this unstable compound, in so far as it is not isolated In a porcelain box, for example; something in it is disturbed cracks, and it  it ”