I turned it back to the position it had been in.

The next picture was of the railroad depot. The telegrapher and baggage clerk were going around the side of the depot towards the tracks. A freight train was rushing through the picture.

Even as I watched it in the picture, I heard the wail of a train whistle in the distance, and it was coming from outside, across town. That freight train was going through town right now.

I put the pictures back the way they had been, and stole softly from Aunt Matilda's bedroom to the bathroom, and closed the door.

"No wonder Aunt Matilda invested in this thing!" I said to my image in the mirror as I shaved.

Picture TV would make all other TV receivers obsolete! Full color TV at that! And with some new principle in stereophonic sound!

What about the fact that neither picture had been plugged into an outlet? Probably run by batteries.

What about the lack of weight? Obviously a new TV principle was involved. Maybe it required fewer circuits and less power.

What about the broadcasting end, the cameras? Permanently set up? What about the broadcast channels?

There had been ten or twelve pictures. I'd only looked at two. Was each a different scene? Twelve different broadcasting stations in Sumac?

It had me dizzy. Probably the new TV principle was so simple that all that could be taken care of without millions of dollars worth of equipment.

A new respect for Aunt Matilda grew in me. She had latched on to a money maker! It didn't hurt to know that I was her favorite nephew, either. With my Ph.D. in physics, and my aunt as one of the stockholders, I could probably land a good job with the company. What a deal!

By the time I finished shaving I was whistling. I was still whistling when I went into the kitchen for breakfast.

"You'll have to hurry, Arthur," Aunt Matilda said. "Your train leaves in forty-five minutes."

"I'm not leaving," I said cheerfully.

I went over to the bright breakfast nook and sat down, and took a cautious sip of coffee. I grunted my approval of it and looked around toward Aunt Matilda, smiling.

She was staring at me with wide eyes. She looked as haggard as though she had just heard she had a week to live.

"But you must go!" she croaked as though my not going were unthinkable.

"Nonsense, you old fox," I said. "I know a good thing as well as you do. I want to get a job with that outfit."

She came toward me with a wild expression on her face.

"Get out!" she screamed. "Get out of my house! I won't have it! You catch that train and get out of town. Do you hear?"

"But, Aunt Matilda!" I protested.

In the end I had to get out or she would have had a stroke. She was shaking like a leaf, her skin mottled and her eyes wild, as I went down the front steps with my bag.

"You get that train, do you hear?" was the last thing she screamed at me as I hurried toward Main Street.

However, I had no intention of leaving town with Aunt Matilda upset that way. I'd let her have time to cool off, then come back. Meanwhile I'd try to get to the bottom of things. A thing as big as wall TV in full color and stereophonic sound must be the talk of the town. I'd find out where they had their office and go talk with them. A career with something like that would be the best thing I could ever hope to find. And getting in on the ground floor!

It surprised me that Aunt Matilda could be so insanely greedy. I shook my head in wonder. It didn't figure.

I had breakfast at the hotel cafe and made a point of telling the waitress, who knew me, that it was my second breakfast, and that I had intended to catch the morning train back to Chicago, but maybe I wouldn't.

After I finished eating I asked if it would be okay to leave my suitcase behind the counter while I looked around a bit. She showed me where to put it so it would be out of the way.

When I paid for my breakfast I half turned away, then turned back