"I shall go at once and annihilate that machine," said the Director,
rising when the recital was finished. "I shall see to that myself. Then,
after the inquest, I shall give an order that everything in the attic
is to be destroyed. I wish that every scientific man on the face of the
earth could be safely placed behind prison bars."

"I am afraid that wouldn't do much good," replied Jennie, "unless you
could prevent chemicals being smuggled in. The scientists would probably
reduce your prison to powder, and walk calmly out through the dust."

Mr. Hardwick had told Jennie that if she solved the Vienna mystery she
would make a European reputation for the _Daily Bugle_. Jennie did more
than was expected of her, yet the European reputation which the _Bugle_
established was not one to be envied. It is true that the account
printed of the cause of the explosion, dramatically completed with the
Professor's tragically sudden death, caused a great sensation in London.
The comic papers of the week were full of illustrations showing the uses
to which the Professor's instrument might be put. To say that any sane
man in England believed a word of the article would be to cast an
undeserved slight upon the intelligence of the British public. No one
paused to think that if a newspaper had published an account of what
could be done by the Roeentgen rays, without being able to demonstrate
practically the truth of the assertions made, the contribution would
have been laughed at. If some years ago a newspaper had stated that a
man in York listened to the voice of a friend at that moment standing in
London, and was not only able to hear what his friend said, but could
actually recognize the voice speaking in an ordinary tone, and then
if the paper had added that, unfortunately, the instrument which
accomplished this had been destroyed, people would have denounced the
sensational nature of modern journalism.

Letters poured in upon the editor, saying that while, as a general rule,
the writers were willing to stand the ordinary lie of commerce daily
printed in the sheet, there was a limit to their credulity and they
objected to be taken for drivelling imbeciles. To complete the
discomfiture of the _Daily Bugle_, the Government of Austria
published an official statement, which Reuter and the special
correspondents scattered broadcast over the earth. The statement was
written in that calm, serious, and consistent tone which diplomatists
use