CHAPTER V JOHNNY'S THINK-O-GRAPHS
"Yes," Johnny whispered to himself as he thrust his hand deep into a darkcorner of his closet. "It's still there. The thought-camera is no dream.But will it record thoughts for me? That's the question."
He found himself all aquiver with excitement. He was like a very smallboy with his very first camera.
"Like to try it on myself," he thought. Then, recalling the littleChinaman's test and the sadly muddled thoughts the camera had broughtout, he, for the time at least, abandoned that plan.
"There's grandfather," he told himself. "He sits by the hour everyevening, looking off into the night and thinking. Wonder what thosethoughts are like. I'd really like to know. That--that's where I'll tryit first." He hurried downstairs.
Johnny was very fond of the stalwart old man he called grandfather. Apioneer of his small city, he had seen much of life. At times he talkedof those days long gone by. For the most part he sat in his great chairon the broad porch and gazed away into the darkness toward the spotwhere, in the daytime, the blue began.
Slipping silently into a chair close to the old man, Johnny touched therelease to the thought-camera. There followed a low buzzing sound.Johnny's heart leaped. The camera was working. But was it recordingthoughts, his grandfather's thoughts? Only time would tell.
For several moments in the night, disturbed only by the cricket's chirpand the distant bullfrog's hoarse croak, the pair sat there motionless.
Then the old man stirred. "What's that, Johnny?" he asked.
"What's what?" Johnny's voice trembled slightly.
"Sounds a little like a new sort of cricket," the old man rumbled.
"Nothing I guess." Johnny snapped off his thought-camera. The soundceased. "Well, guess I'll go up," he said in as steady a tone as he couldcommand. "Goodnight!"
"Goodnight, Johnny."
The boy fairly ran up the stairs. He was obliged to drop into a chair inhis room to calm himself. Then, after shaking his fingers to loosen theirtenseness, he went about the business of the hour.
Having removed the small cartridge containing the long, thread-like film,he set it revolving in that other magic box that was supposed to developand finish it. Two minutes of this and the thing was done. Or was it?
Drawing one long deep breath, Johnny placed the film in themicroscope-like affair, then started the mechanism.
For ten seconds he stood there squinting into the brass tube, spellbound.Then he exclaimed, "Hot diggity dog!"
After that, for a full fifteen minutes his thoughts were focussed uponthe thing before him. In that quarter hour he ran the film through threetimes.
"Nothing," he murmured as at last he sank into a chair, "nothing could behalf so marvelous!"
And indeed it _was_ marvelous for there, stripped of all the backwardnessand timidity that so often hamper the speech of old men, were recordedthe golden thoughts of one grand old man as he dreamed of the gloriouspioneer days that are gone forever.
"I'll copy it," Johnny told himself, "then I'll have it printed in the_Sentinel_.
"No," he amended, "I'll do better than that. I'll record his thoughtsnight after night. They'll never be the same. It will make a book. Andsuch a book!"
At that he sat for a long time dreaming of the marvelous things he woulddo with that thought-camera.
"But it belongs to Tao Sing," he reminded himself. "Only he knows thesecret of it. How long am I to have it? As long as I fulfill Tao Sing'swishes I suppose."
At that, with a shudder he could not entirely explain, he recalled hispromise to Tao Sing. He was to carry the camera to the Chinese Chamber ofCommerce. He was to point it at his friend, the rich Chinese merchantWung Lu, and record his thoughts for Tao Sing.
"I wonder why?" Disturbing thought!
"Think-o-graphs," he whispered to himself before he fell asleep thatnight. "Good name for them, all right. A picture of your face is aphotograph, so, naturally a picture of your thoughts is a think-o-graph.There now!" he chuckled to himself, "I've coined a brand new word. And ifthis thought-camera comes to be a common possession as ordinary camerasare, it will be a very popular word. If it does--" he repeated slowly.
He tried to think what the world would be like if anyone who wished itmight have a thought-camera and photograph other people's thoughts. Therewould not remain in the world one secret that could be kept, that wascertain. All the secrets between nations would be at an end. Spies wouldlose their jobs. No criminal could escape revealing his innermostthoughts. The whole thing made him slightly dizzy, so he gave overthinking about it, and fell asleep.