positive pictures at one end of
the apparatus by the successive transmission of many small parts
separately. I have harnessed the alternating current in a brand-new way,
I think. Instead of prolonging the operation, I do it all at once,
projecting the image on a sheet of tiny selenium cells. My work is
done. Now the thing to do is to convince the world of that."

"Then you have the telephote in actual operation?" asked Kennedy.

"Yes," he replied. "I have a little station down on the shore of the
south side of the island." He handed us a card on which he wrote the
address at South Side Beach. "That will admit you there at any time, if
I should not be about. I am testing it out there--have several
instruments on transatlantic liners. We think it may be of use in
war--sending plans, photographs of spies--and such things."

He stopped suddenly. The music had started again and Gloria was again
out on the dancing floor. It was evident that at this very important
time in his career Franconi's mind was on other things.

"Everyone seems to become easily acquainted with everyone else here,"
remarked Craig, bending over the rail.

"I suppose one cannot dance without partners," returned Franconi
absently.

We continued to watch the dancers. I knew enough of these young fellows,
merely by their looks, to see that most of them were essential replicas
of one type. Certainly most of them could have qualified as social
gangsters, without scruples, without visible means of support, without
character or credit, but not without a certain vicious kind of ambition.

They seemed to have an unlimited capacity for dancing, freak foods, joy
rides, and clothes. Clothes were to them what a jimmy is to a burglar.
Their English coats were so tight that one wondered how they bent and
swayed without bursting. Smart clothes and smart manners such as they
affected were very fascinating to some women.

"Who are they all, do you suppose?" I queried.

"All sorts and conditions," returned Kennedy. "Wall Street fellows whose
pocketbooks have been thinned by dull times on the Exchange; actors out
of engagements, law clerks, some of them even college students. They
seem to be a new class. I don't think of any other way they could pick
up a living more easily than by this polite parasitism. None of them
have any money. They don't get anything from the owner of the cabaret,
of course, except perhaps the right to sign checks for a limited amount
in the