be darned if I can explain just what this is. I'm really going to have to do some digging."

While Jim was talking, I had been looking the rig over. It consisted of the plastic plate lying on the floor, with two sets of wires running into it, and out of it. In turn, these four wires led into what I took to be a transformer of some sort. Such as you'd use for a toy electric train. It had roughly calibrated dials on the top of it. A regular AC line from the transformer was plugged into the wall socket.

"What I can't figure," Jim mused, "Is why it does what it does. The measly three years I've spent at school don't even qualify me to make a good guess. Does it only work on small things that can be lifted without too much effort anyway? Or, if I increase the size of the plate will I also have to increase the voltage? Will it...?"

"Look boy, I'm confused enough already. What do you say we sit down and think about this a bit? It'll give you a chance to collect your wits, and besides that, I want another cup of coffee."

Four cups and two pipes later, after Johnny, that's our fourteen-year-old, and Mary had gone to bed, Jim and I were still just sitting. He was obviously thinking, and I was mostly sitting. Not much thinking. The trouble with my thinking was that a background of selling everything from Encyclopedias to, at present, used cars, and an education consisting mostly of high school and hard knocks just didn't qualify me in Jim's league. The silence lengthened. Pretty soon he stirred in his chair, cleared his throat and said, "Let's go look again."

"Have you come to any conclusions?"

"Well, yes and no," Jim said. "Look at it this way Pop; suppose this is not a fluke and I'm able to duplicate this thing. Suppose I'm able to take this transformer and duplicate it too. All on a larger scale. How could it be used to good advantage? It'd probably do away with elevators in most cases, except you'd have to walk down. But then, by making the field weaker, maybe I could fix it so's you'd float down. Then too, I wonder if it can be applied to aircraft of any kind ... I suppose you could take it and ..." his eyes were shining.

I interrupted; "Jim, you haven't really tested what the thing will do and it is late, so before you go into many more schemes, let's sleep on it. We can get right after it in the morning. You can, that is, because all I can do is watch."

The next morning bright and early I was awakened by Johnny, who was dancing around the room, shouting something on the order of "Hey! Somebody's gottoget'erdown! Somebody's gottoget'erdown!"

Making myself heard over the din, I hollered, "Who's got to get who down? For Pete's sake, stop yelling so loud!"

Having been out-shouted, Johnny calmed down enough to catch his breath and gasp, "Say, Dad, Duchess is in Jim's room and she's on the ceiling, and yougottoget'erdown!"

Well, it dawned on me then what he was talking about. Duchess is our nine-months-old Great Dane pup. Weighs about a hundred pounds. So, pulling on bathrobe and slippers, I went down stairs, and hurried into Jim's room. Sure enough, plastered on the ceiling and looking mighty scared and sick and sheepish was Duchess. When I came in she wagged a feeble tail at me and squirmed a bit. Mary, Johnny and Jim were all standing looking at her.

"Dad, I don't know how it happened," Jim said. "Guess I forgot to pull the plug last night. First I knew was when I heard a thump and a yelp ... woke up and she was practically right over my bed."

Duchess was apparently unhurt, so I walked over and reached up to coax her down. Just then Jim shouted, "Dad! Don't do...!" And my head hit the ceiling! Like a fool I had walked right over the plastic plate!

As soon as I could get my eyes to focus properly, I shut them again quickly. I was lying, (lying!) next to Duchess, on the ceiling, and she was thrashing me in the face with her tail. As soon as I pushed her around so my face was out of range I