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“You don’t say? OK, show me Where is it?”

Lynds tapped the sketch pad and then tapped his head “In here”

“What was that?”

Bell watched with ade of his pad to display the words he had written out ahead of time: The first machine was lost I need a laboratory, machine shops, and money to build a new one

“What do you mean ‘lost’?” Edison shouted

Clyde flipped to the next page, on which he had written In a fire, and Isaac Bell’s ad scientist was choreographing his conversation with the richest, most famous inventor in the world

Edison glanced at Bell Whatever the expression in his eyes, it was lost in the shadow of his brow, but Bell sensed a shift in his attitude “Mr Bell,” he said briskly, suddenly all business, “I suspect that the purely scientific conversation we are about to eed a tour of my laboratories for your enjoy pictures different from all the others”

“Thoughtful of you,” said Bell, rising to his feet “I’et rid of him But just as clearly, Bell concluded, Clyde could take care of hin no papers without Van Dorn attorneys reading them first

The functionary sprang into the room as if he had had his ear pressed to the door, and Isaac Bell allowed hih a standard canned tour of the Edison laboratory He saw the chemical plant, machine shops, laboratories At the storerooth of uide told hiallery Bell could look down at Mr Edison’s two-story, book-lined office The functionary pointed out Edison’s htbulb on a heap of broken oil lamps

“What’s that?” Bell asked They were passing a door lass he could see an older bearded man hunched over a cat’s cradle of wires and pulleys that linked a raph Joe Van Dorn, Bell recalled, had been disappointed by a Kinetophone “I said, ‘What’s that?’”

“Just an experiment”

“I’d like to see it”

“It’s not ready to be seen”

“I don’t uide’s protests The bearded oldin surprise, as if unaccustomed to visitors

“We should not be in here, Mr Bell,” said the functionary “This experi on it”