She glanced about the room, and her eye took in the giant switches of
copper with their black handles; there were others of a gray-green metal
she did not recognize. Many dials and meters, strange to her, confronted
the little woman. These things, she felt with a rush of gratitude toward
the inanimate objects, would help to save her son, so they interested
her and she began to feel kindly toward the great machines.

* * * * *

Would Professor Burr be able to save Allen as he claimed? Yes, she
thought, he could. She would make Allen consent to the trial of it, even
though her son had cursed the scientist and cried he would never speak
to Ramsey Burr again.

She was escorted from the home of the professor by Jared, and going out
into the bright, sunlit street, blinked as her eyes adjusted themselves
to the daylight after the queer light of the laboratory. In a bundle she
had a strange suit and the cups; her purse held the tiny coil, wrapped
in cotton.

How could she get the authorities to consent to her son having the suit?
The cups and the coil she might slip to him herself. She decided that a
mother would be allowed to give her son new underwear. Yes, she would
say it was that.

She started at once for the prison. Professor Burr's laboratory was but
twenty miles from the cell where her son was incarcerated.

As she rode on the train, seeing people in everyday attire, commonplace
occurrences going on about her, the spell of Professor Burr faded, and
cold reason stared her in the face. Was it nonsense, this idea of
transporting bodies through the air, in invisible waves? Yet, she was
old-fashioned; the age of miracles had not passed for her. Radio, in
which pictures and voices could be sent on wireless waves, was
unexplainable to her. Perhaps--

She sighed, and shook her head. It was hard to believe. It was also hard
to believe that her son was in deadly peril, condemned to death as a
"scientific fiend."

Here was her station. A taxi took her to the prison, and after a talk
with the warden, finally she stood there, before the screen through
which she could talk to Allen, her son.

"Mother!"

Her heart lifted, melted within her. It was always thus when he spoke.
"Allen," she whispered softly.

They were allowed to talk undisturbed.

"Professor Burr wishes to help you," she said, in a low voice.

* * * * *

Her son, Allen Baker, M. D., turned