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"We all have to recognize our limitations, Doc," Lew said expansively. "I’ll handle the business end, and you handle the technical end." He made a motion as though to put on his coat. "Or maybe you don’t want to be a millionaire?"

"Oh, yes, yes indeed I do," Fred said quickly. "Yes, indeed."

"All righty," Lew said, dusting his palms, "the first thing we’ve gotta do is build one of the sets and test her."

This part of it was down Fred’s alley, and I could see the problem interested him. "It’s really a pretty simple gadget," he said. "I suppose we could throw one together and run a test out here next week."

The first test of the euphoriaphone, or euphio, took place in Fred Bockman’s living room on a Saturday afternoon, five days after Fred’s and Lew’s sensational radio broadcast.

There were six guinea pigs—Lew, Fred and his wife Marion, myself, my wife Susan, and my son Eddie. The Bockmans had arranged chairs in a circle around a card table, on which rested a gray steel box.

Protruding from the box was a long buggy whip aerial that scraped the ceiling. While Fred fussed with the box, the rest of us made nervous small talk over sandwiches and beer. Eddie, of course, wasn’t drinking beer, though he was badly in need of a sedative. He was annoyed at having been brought out to the farm instead of to a ball game, and was threatening to take it out on the Bockmans’ Early American furnishings. He was playing a spirited game of flies and grounders with himself near the French doors, using a dead tennis ball and a poker.

"Eddie," Susan said for the tenth time, "please stop."

"It’s under control, under control," Eddie said disdainfully, playing the ball off four walls and catching it with one hand.

Marion, who vents her maternal instincts on her immaculate furnishings, couldn’t hide her distress at Eddie’s turning the place into a gymnasium. Lew, in his way, was trying to calm her. "Let him wreck the dump," Lew said. "You’ll be moving into a palace one of these days."

"It’s ready," Fred said softly.

We looked at him with queasy bravery. Fred plugged two jacks from the phone line into the gray box. This was the direct line to his antenna on the campus, and clockwork would keep the antenna fixed on one of the mysterious voids in the sky— the most potent of Bockman’s Euphoria. He plugged a cord from the box into an electrical outlet in the baseboard, and rested his hand on a switch. "Ready?"

"Don’t, Fred!’’ I said. I was scared stiff.

"Turn it on, turn it on," Lew said. "We wouldn’t have the telephone today if Bell hadn’t had the guts to call somebody up."

"I’ll stand right here by the switch, ready to flick her off if something goes sour," Fred said reassuringly. There was a click, a hum and the euphio was on.

A deep, unanimous sigh filled the room. The poker slipped from Eddie’s hands. He moved across the room in a stately sort of waltz, knelt by his mother, and laid his head in her lap. Fred drifted away from his post, humming, his eyes half closed.

Lew Harrison was the first to speak, continuing his conversation with Marion. "But who cares for material wealth?" he asked earnestly. He turned to Susan for confirmation.

"Uh-uh," said Susan, shaking her head dreamily. She put her arms around Lew, and kissed him for about five minutes.

"Say," I said, patting Susan on the back, "you kids get along swell, don’t you? Isn’t that nice, Fred?"

"Eddie," Marion said solicitqusly, "I think there’s a real baseball in the hall closet. A hard ball. Wouldn’t that be more fun than that old tennis ball?" Eddie didn’t stir.

Fred was still prowling around the room, smiling, his eyes now closed all the way. His heel caught in a lamp cord, and he went sprawling on the hearth, his head in the ashes. "Hi-ho, everybody," he said, his eyes still closed. "Bunged my head on an andiron." He stayed there, giggling occasionally.

"The doorbell’s been ringing for a while," Susan said. "I don’t suppose it means anything."

"Come in, come in," I shouted. This somehow struck everyone as terribly funny. We all laughed uproariously, including