the devil could you do that?"

"How? How? But simply! First my liquid positive, then my magic
spectacles. I photograph the story in a liquid with light-sensitive
chromates. I build up a complex solution--do you see? I add taste
chemically and sound electrically. And when the story is recorded, then
I put the solution in my spectacle--my movie projector. I electrolyze
the solution, break it down; the older chromates go first, and out comes
the story, sight, sound, smell, taste--all!"

"Touch?"

"If your interest is taken, your mind supplies that." Eagerness crept
into his voice. "You will look at it, Mr.----?"

"Burke," said Dan. "A swindle!" he thought. Then a spark of recklessness
glowed out of the vanishing fumes of alcohol. "Why not?" he grunted.

He rose; Ludwig, standing, came scarcely to his shoulder. A queer
gnomelike old man, Dan thought as he followed him across the park and
into one of the scores of apartment hotels in the vicinity.

In his room Ludwig fumbled in a bag, producing a device vaguely
reminiscent of a gas mask. There were goggles and a rubber mouthpiece;
Dan examined it curiously, while the little bearded professor brandished
a bottle of watery liquid.

"Here it is!" he gloated. "My liquid positive, the story. Hard
photography--infernally hard, therefore the simplest story. A
Utopia--just two characters and you, the audience. Now, put the
spectacles on. Put them on and tell me what fools the Westman people
are!" He decanted some of the liquid into the mask, and trailed a
twisted wire to a device on the table. "A rectifier," he explained. "For
the electrolysis."

"Must you use all the liquid?" asked Dan. "If you use part, do you see
only part of the story? And which part?"

"Every drop has all of it, but you must fill the eye-pieces." Then as
Dan slipped the device gingerly on, "So! Now what do you see?"

"Not a damn' thing. Just the windows and the lights across the street."

"Of course. But now I start the electrolysis. Now!"

* * * * *

There was a moment of chaos. The liquid before Dan's eyes clouded
suddenly white, and formless sounds buzzed. He moved to tear the device
from his head, but emerging forms in the mistiness caught his interest.
Giant things were writhing there.

The scene steadied; the whiteness was dissipating like mist in summer.
Unbelieving, still gripping the arms of that unseen chair, he was
staring at a forest. But what a fores