“‘Don’t speak so loud. I can hear you at this distance if you merely whisper. Now press the little button at the end marked “ear,” and wait for the megaphone attachment.’ I did as he said, and again I jumped and nearly dropped the instrument, for the room was filled with a voice which sounded louder than a peal of thunder. “‘By pressing that button you do for the seismaphone what by putting on the horns you do for the phonograph or graphophone,’ the stentorian voice said. ‘You had better press the button in the other end, for my voice with this attachment is probably too loud for pleasure.’ “I pressed the button obediently as directed, and walked back down-stairs filled with wonder. “We shall not get to bed any earlier than Martin Bradley and I did that night, if I stop to tell you all of our conversation. I found that he was a man I had known slightly some years ago when I was trying for the patent office position. “He had in his youth been through a technical school and received a good education; but had been unable to settle down to any steady employment, preferring to devote himself to some great invention. Eight years ago he began working on this instrument, and had been developing and perfecting it ever since. “The proposition he made me was that I should go into partnership with him to get the seismaphone patented and before the public, he furnishing the device, and I the money and backing. “We sat and talked for hours, and the morning sun found us still in our chairs discussing the immense possibilities of the invention. “It would supersede the mails. Speaking-tubes, telephones, telegraphs, and cables would give way to it. In short, the inventor of such an instrument would win for himself a name greater than a Morse or an Edison, and the fortune he could amass would exceed that of all the Vanderbilts, Goulds, and Rockefellers in the country. “Martin Bradley remained at my house all that week, and had the best of everything that money could buy. I secured a two weeks’ vacation from the patent office, and he and I worked together every hour of that time. “One day as a test he took one-half of the seismaphone and went down the Potomac a hundred and forty miles to Point Lookout, while I stayed at home with the other instrument. He had by use of the long-distance telephone hired a man down there to keep watch for the arrival of the boat he was coming on, and given him instructions to telephone me when it first hove in sight. “I sent Nellie and the children out to Chevy Chase for the day, and sat all the afternoon in front of the telephone, with the seismaphone on my knee. Several times I called to Bradley, but he did not answer.