arrett," he said, noticing my eagerness with a
smile, "we'll go to it in a moment. I thought you might care for a
highball first." From a closet he selected a bottle of Scotch, some
soda, and glasses. Before he poured the whisky, he removed a small box
from a cabinet, opened it, and extracted two small capsules. He dropped
one of them into each glass.

"This is a harmless drug," he explained. "It will paralyze some of the
nerves of your body so that you won't feel the chair you'll be sitting
in nor any extraneous sensation that might interfere with the
impressions you must get from the instrument. It's a sort of local
anesthetic." He handed me my glass.

We drank the highballs rather hastily, and rose. Melbourne went to a
door at one end of the room and opened it, switching on a light.
Following him, I looked past the doorway into a small room something
like the conception I had of the control-room in a submarine. It was a
small chamber with metal walls. It had no windows, and only the one door
through which we entered.

Around the walls were a series of cabinets with innumerable dials,
switches, wires, and tiny radio tubes. It was like a glorified radio,
but there were no loud speakers and no ear-phones. Two very deep and
comfortable chairs stood side by side in the center of the room.

"The experience will be very simple," Melbourne said softly. "I'm not
going into any detail about this instrument until we see how it works. I
may as well explain, though, that the room is absolutely sound-proof, so
that no trace of noises outside can enter it. Furthermore, I maintain it
at an even body temperature. These precautions are to prevent
interference with the sound impressions and the heat and cold stimuli
of the instrument. That is the only reason we have to be confined here
in this room, because it is especially adapted to the reception of these
impressions.

"The instrument, you see, like a radio, is operative at a distance. I am
going to test you in a moment for your wavelength. When I have that, and
set the instrument, you could receive the story, so far as I know,
anywhere in the world. No receiving set is necessary, for it acts
directly upon the brain. But you must have these ideal conditions for
pure reception."

* * * * *

I seated myself in one of the chairs, yawning a little. Melbourne,
working at the dials, noticed my yawn and observed approvingly.

"That's good. The more d