OUT OF THIN AIR the most colourful language, was deeply immersed in soldering wires. Dad was busy with plumbers who were installing at least thirty feet of pipe to carry the constant supply of water which flowed over the tube to maintain a steady temperature. I stood around hoping Dad would tell me to go and help Lindy with the tube sorting. But no one took any notice of me. So, bored with waiting around, I went off to the movies. On the way home I called in to see how things were progressing. What a scene it was! Water was flowing everywhere. Jack was swearing a blue haze. Dad was trying to stem the tide of water with old coats, work clothes or anything else that came to hand, while cursing the day he'd ever heard of water-cooled tubes. During all this the man upstairs, Lindy, had been forgotten. As I stood there in disbelief at what I was seeing, Lindy descended the stairs carrying a large box filled with good tubes. Suddenly one big foot crossed over the other, and Lucky Lindy's luck gave out. Down he came with a tremendous crash, the hundred odd good tubes popping and splintering into a million glass fragments. I got out of there as those tubes were bouncing down the steps and breaking into the growing pools of water made when "the baby wonder of the tube world"—as John Quincy called it—blew out. Poor Dad , I will never forget his face. Four hundred dollars plus whatever the broken tubes cost, not to mention the water damage—all in one after¬ noon. My father was in trouble. I cried all the way home. When all the water was mopped up, all the tiny pieces of glass taken out of the floor boards, and when tempers had cooled to normal, it was discovered that the big water-cooled tubes were still intact, the splin¬ tering glass had only come from the small tubes that fell from Lindy's hands. The big ones were carefully placed in their heavily padded wooden containers and sent back to the factory to be rebuilt. 78