n looking the rig over. It consisted
of the plastic plate lying on the floor, with two sets of wires
running into it, and out of it. In turn, these four wires led into
what I took to be a transformer of some sort. Such as you'd use for a
toy electric train. It had roughly calibrated dials on the top of it.
A regular AC line from the transformer was plugged into the wall
socket.

"What I can't figure," Jim mused, "Is why it does what it does. The
measly three years I've spent at school don't even qualify me to make
a good guess. Does it only work on small things that can be lifted
without too much effort anyway? Or, if I increase the size of the
plate will I also have to increase the voltage? Will it...?"

"Look boy, I'm confused enough already. What do you say we sit down
and think about this a bit? It'll give you a chance to collect your
wits, and besides that, I want another cup of coffee."

* * * * *

Four cups and two pipes later, after Johnny, that's our
fourteen-year-old, and Mary had gone to bed, Jim and I were still just
sitting. He was obviously thinking, and I was mostly sitting. Not much
thinking. The trouble with my thinking was that a background of
selling everything from Encyclopedias to, at present, used cars, and
an education consisting mostly of high school and hard knocks just
didn't qualify me in Jim's league. The silence lengthened. Pretty soon
he stirred in his chair, cleared his throat and said, "Let's go look
again."

"Have you come to any conclusions?"

"Well, yes and no," Jim said. "Look at it this way Pop; suppose this
is not a fluke and I'm able to duplicate this thing. Suppose I'm able
to take this transformer and duplicate it too. All on a larger scale.
How could it be used to good advantage? It'd probably do away with
elevators in most cases, except you'd have to walk down. But then, by
making the field weaker, maybe I could fix it so's you'd float down.
Then too, I wonder if it can be applied to aircraft of any kind ... I
suppose you could take it and ..." his eyes were shining.

I interrupted; "Jim, you haven't really tested what the thing will do
and it _is_ late, so before you go into many more schemes, let's sleep
on it. We can get right after it in the morning. You can, that is,
because all I can do is watch."

The next morning bright and early I was awakened by Johnny, who was
dancing around the room, shouting something on the order of "Hey!