"Whispering Ether"
↬By Charles S. Wolfe↫
I Point It Right At His Head, and Makin' My Voice As Hard As I Can I Says, Tense-like, "You Speak One Word and You'll Eat Your Breakfast In Hell." And Proctor Smiles. Get That? With My Gat Aimed At His Head He Smiles. And, Fellow, When Proctor Smiles It Gives You the Creeps.
AN amazing story by that versatile author, Mr. Wolfe, The ether is something we know nothing about. But its action and its waves give a basis for the strange mystery we are told of here. It touches on the world of ether waves to which our radio fans are appealing and while this of course is in the realm of abstruce science, we have again in this story, the everyday crude thinker mystified by it all, and this is the history of the world. The intelligence of each of us is very limited, and our habits and ways of thought are only a little more clumsy than our author's characters, whom he uses to bring out as always a wonderful contrast. The story is well worth reading.
'M NOT a scientist. "Cans" is my line. Safes, you know. "Soup," nitro-glycerine, that kind of thing, get me? "Shoe-maker stick to your last." Them is my sentiments, and I stick to my own trade. But now that they got me tied up in this confounded jail, and I ain't got much to do with my spare time I got a notion to jot down what I know about that Proctor affair that you maybe read about in the papers. Reporters was after me thick when it happened, but I was the silent kid. It pays to keep your mouth shut in the circles I move in.
Proctor's in the bug house. Three alienists, or whatever you call those ginks that admit they're sane and prove you're not, pronounced him hopelessly insane. I ain't disputing no jury of my peers. If they say he's a nut, he's a nut, that's all. But
I didn't get introduced to Proctor in the regular way. We didn't have no mutual acquaintances to slip us the knock-down. It all came about thru me droppin' in one night, casual like, to blow his safe. You might wonder what a yegg would want out of a laboratory safe. Maybe you'll wise up when I tip you it was a contract job. Not my own, see? I'm namin' no names, but there was a gang of big guys that wanted old Proctor's formula for Chero, and thought it would
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