nel pointed
towards a square screen set against the wall, a curious screen
superimposed on what appeared to be a background of frosted glass.

"'This,' said the Professor, laying one hand on the funnel and
indicating the screen with the other, 'is part of the arrangement with
which I have established communication with the world in the atom.

"'No,' he said, rightly interpreting my exclamation, 'I am not crazy.
For months I have been exchanging messages with the inhabitants of that
world. You know the wave and corpuscular theories of light? Both are
correct, but in a higher synthesis--But I won't go into that. Suffice
it to say that I broke through the seemingly insuperable barrier
hemming in the atomic world and made myself known. But I see that you
still doubt my assertion. Very well, I will give you a demonstration.
Keep your eyes on the screen--so----'

"Adjusting what seemed a radio headpiece to my ears, he seated himself
at a complicated control-board. Motors purred, lights flashed, every
filament of the screen became alive with strange fires. The frosted
glass melted into an infinity of rose-colored distance. Far off, in the
exact center of this rosy distance appeared a black spot. Despite the
headpiece, I could hear the Professor talking to himself, manipulating
dials and levers. The black spot grew, it advanced, it took on form and
substance; and then I stared, I gasped, for suddenly I was gazing into
a vast laboratory, but depicted on a miniature scale.

"But it wasn't this laboratory which riveted my attention. No. It was
the unexpected creature that perched in the midst of it and seemed to
look into my face with unwinking eyes of gold set in a flat reptilian
head. This creature moved; its feathers gleamed metallically; I saw its
bill open and shut. Distinctly through the ear-phones came a harsh
sound, a sound I can only describe by the words _toc-toc, toc-toc_.
Then, just as the picture had appeared, it faded, the lights went out,
the purring of the motors ceased.

"'Yes,' said the Professor, stepping to my side and removing the
headpiece, 'the inhabitants of the sub-atomic planet are birds.'

"I could only stare at him dumbly.

"'I see that astounds you. You are thinking that they lack hands and
other characteristics of the _genus homo_. But perhaps certain
faculties of manipulation take their place. At any rate those birds are
intelligent beings; in some respects, further advanced in science than