First, a spot on the ceramic tile wall of the room became suddenly red, orange, white hot. Then there was a little crater of incandescent fury, as though a small volcano had erupted in the wall. Following that, there was a sputtering and crackling from the innards of the device itself, and a cloud of smoke arose suddenly, obscuring things in the room. Finally, there was the crash of circuit-breakers as they reacted to the overload from the short circuit. There was silence for a moment, then the hiss of the automatic fire extinguishers in the testing room as they poured a cloud of carbon dioxide snow on the smoldering apparatus. "There," said Davenport with utter satisfaction. "What did I tell you?" "You didn't tell me this thing was a heat-ray projector," said Colonel Spaulding. "What are you talking about?" Dr. Davenport said disdainfully. "Develop the film in those automatic cameras," Spaulding said, "and I'll show you what I'm talking about!" As far as Colonel Spaulding was concerned, the film showed clearly what had happened. A beam of energy had leaped from the "tail" of the Q-tube, hit the ceramic tile of the wall, and burned its way through in half a second or so. The hole in the wall, surrounded by fused ceramic, was mute evidence of the occurrence of what Spaulding had seen. But Dr. Davenport pooh-poohed the whole thing. Evidence to the contrary, he was quite certain that no such thing had happened. A piece of hot glass from a broken vacuum tube had done it, he insisted. A piece of hot glass had burned its way through half an inch of tile? And a wall? Davenport muttered something about the destructive effects of shaped charges. He was more willing to believe that something as wildly improbable as that had happened than admit that the device had done what Colonel Spaulding was quite certain it had done. Within three hours, Davenport had three possible explanations of what had happened, each of which required at least four unlikely things to happen coincidentally. Colonel Spaulding stalked back to his office in a state of angry disgust. Just because the thing was foreign to Davenport's notions, he had effectively tied his own hands--and Colonel Spaulding's, too. "Where's Lenny Poe?" he asked the WAC sergeant. "I want to talk to him." She shook her head. "I don't know, sir. Lieutenant Fesner called in half an hour ago. Mr. Poe has eluded them again." [Illustration] Colonel Spaulding gazed silently at the ceiling for a long moment. Then: "Sergeant Nugget, take a letter. To the President of the United States, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. "Dear Sir. Consider this my resignation. I have had so much experience with jackasses lately that I have decided to change my name to Hackenbush and become a veterinarian. Yours truly, et cetera. Got that?" "Yes, sir," said the sergeant. "Burn it. When Fumblefingers Fesner and his boys find Lenny Poe again, I want to know immediately." He stalked on into his office.