Page:Weird Tales Volume 8 Number 1 (1926-07).djvu/118

Rh that Mars is gone. He's an insufferable bore!"

"Why, Jim," cried Vera, half laughing, "as sure as fate I do believe you're jealous, just because"

"Jealous!" I burst out. "Jealous of him? Why, I can show him cards and spades"

"I know you can. That's just it," laughed Vera: "that's just why it's so funny to have you care because you didn't know about Mars. It's much more important that you know more about cost-accounting than Ed does."

Vera was right, as usual, and I rewarded her with a kiss just as Junior screamed that Archie Zutell was coming across the lawn to play with him and Eleanor.

"Well, you kids clear out of here," I said, "and play outside if we grown-ups are expected to see anything of the president and hear his address, and Jimmy, don't let Archie put anything over on you. Stick up for your rights."

I imagined Vera smiled a little indulgently and I didn't like it.

"Well, at any rate," I said, "I do like young Marden and his bride. There's a fellow that really is an astronomer, but he never shoots off his mouth about it in inappropriate places."

Truth was, Marden held a high college degree in astronomy and taught the subject in our local college. Just across the street from our residence, which faced the beautiful campus, stood the observatory on a picturesque elevation. Many summer evenings since my deplorable error in regard to Mars I had visited the observatory with Oscar Marden and learned much that was interesting about the starry host.

HE breakfast dishes cleared away, Vera and I seated ourselves at our new televisio that worked in combination with the radio. It was the envy of the neighborhood, there being but three others in the entire town that could compare with it. There was yet half an hour before the president's address was scheduled to commence. We turned on the electricity. Vice-president Ellsworth was speaking. We gazed into the great oval mirror and saw that he was in the private office of his own residence. A door opened behind him and a tall man entered the room, lifted his hand in dignified salutation, and smiled at his unseen spectators. Then in clear resonant tones he began addressing his invisible audience in a preliminary talk preceding the one to be delivered from the new capitol steps.

At this point the Hardens and Zutells arrived, and after the exchange of a few pleasantries, were comfortably seated pending the main address of the morning.

"Citizens of the Republic of the United Americas," began President Bedford.

I reached for the dials, and with a slight manipulation the man's voice was as clear as if he talked with us in the room. I turned another dial, and the hazy outlines were cleared, bringing the tall, manly form into correct perspective. Behind him rose the massive columns of the new eapitol building in Central America.

The address, an exceptionally inspiring one, continued while the six of us in our Midwestern town were seeing and hearing with millions of others throughout the country, a man thousands of miles away. The day had commenced cloudy, but ere long the sun was shining with dazzling splendor. Meanwhile the president continued to speak in simple but eloquent style of the future of our great republic. So engrossed were we six, and undoubtedly millions of others upon two continents, to say nothing of the scattered radio audience throughout the world, that for some time we had failed to notice the