"Hold on, Tom!" protested Mr. Swift. "I give up! Don't rub it in on your old dad. I admit that folks did laugh at those inventors, with their seemingly impossible schemes, but they made good. And you've made good lots of times where I thought you wouldn't. But just stop to consider for a moment. This thing of sending a picture over a telephone wire is totally out of the question, and entirely opposed to all the principles of science.
"What do I care for principles of science?" cried Tom, and he strode about the room so rapidly that Eradicate, the old colored servant, who came in with the mail, skipped out of the library with the remark:
"Deed, an' Massa Tom must be pow'fully preragitated dis mawnin'!"
"Some of the scientists said it was totally opposed to all natural laws when I planned my electric rifle," went on Tom. "But I made it, and it shot. They said my air glider would never stay up, but she did."
"But, Tom, this is different. You are talking of sending light waves—one of the most delicate forms of motion in the world—over a material wire. It can't be done!"
"Look here, Dad!" exclaimed Tom, coming to a halt in front of his parent. "What is light,
