Lights out for the Devil and Mr. Old. It is later than you think. Turn out your lights, now. We bring you stories of the supernatural and the supernormal, dramatizing the fantasies and the mysteries of the unknown. We tell you this frankly so that if you wish to avoid the excitement and tension of these imaginative plays, we urge you calmly but sincerely to turn off your radio now. This is Mr. O.R. Jobler. We humans always think of the ultimate, the ultimate love, the ultimate happiness, ultimate security, ultimate peace. So just to be fashionable or perhaps with tongue in cheek, today I bring you another ultimate and its title is, The Hole. It all begins after a word from your station. And now, if you haven't already done so, turn off your lights and listen to The Hole. So I says to him, I says, well sir, I'd like to be obliging but I really haven't got the time. And he says to me, he says, well Mr. Jackson, after all we're making this proposition only to a few outstanding student representatives on the campus. And we do feel that you should be interested in our proposition. Well, what did you say? Well, I said, mister, I can't be bothered. Just can't be bothered. And I gets in my car and off I go. But Bob, free clothes just for wearing them around the campus? Listen Stan, my boy, what I want to be a clothes horse for any old haberdashery. My old papi's got more money than he knows what to do with. Now what for, I ask? Well, I guess you got something there. Say, who you gonna take to the dance Saturday night? Hmm, haven't made up my mind. How about that new number over at the Roto house? Ah, no thank you brother. What's the matter? Well, did you ever take a look at her feet? No sir, never got below her chin. Ha ha, hold it. Yeah? Ray Stewart to see you Stan. Oh, oh yeah, send him on up. Ray Stewart, who's he? Well, we're still short one pledge aren't we? Yeah, I know, but Ray Stewart, who is he? Oh, I met him over in chemistry. Got a mind like a textbook. Oh, but who is he? We can't pledge a man just because he's a grind. Well, we could use a few grinds around here. Exams come around, there's nothing like a few of those brainy boys to pull us through. But who is he? Where is he from? Who's his family? Who's his father? Hold it, hold it. Morning Ray. Oh, thank you. Oh, it was good of you to bother to come over tonight. It was good of you to ask me. Oh, not at all. Ray, I want you to meet the president of our house, Bob Jackson. Mr. Jackson, Mr. Stewart. I'm certainly glad to make your acquaintance. I might as well admit this is the first time I've ever been in a fraternity house. Ray, hello. Ah, sit down Ray. Make yourself at home. Oh, thank you, thank you. Now, tell me Ray, do you ever go in for any sports back in your prep days? Oh, no. I never had much time for that sort of thing. No? No, I think that sports should be put into their proper place. After all, I'm sure you agree they aren't particularly important. And what might I ask is important in your estimation, Mr. Stewart? Doing things. Being someone. What? Doing things man's never done before. Taking the elements and transmuting them into things which never existed until you thought of them. That's important. That's being almost godlike, isn't it? Mr. Utah. Oh, I'm sorry. I get sort of carried away. Yeah, well that's all right. Bob, this boy sure knows his chemistry. Huh? Oh, I really don't know so much. Say, I ought to know better. You pulled me over some tough spots in this course. I'm very glad to help you whenever I can. If I lived here, I could help you all the time. I could help you too, Mr. Jackson. If I need help, I know where to get it. Oh, I didn't mean to offend you. It's all right, Stewart. Now, tell me, you're from around Chicago way, aren't you? Oh no, Milwaukee. Lived there for years. Don't tell me I'm one of those Bruin families. Oh no, we're not wealthy people at all. My father runs a small business. It isn't much, but we get along. Oh. I don't think money's important anyway if a person's ambitious. Do you, Mr. Jackson? Oh no, no. What's money? You fellas may think this funny, but I always thought it's more important what a fellow does than what he has. I mean, I've always had the feeling that someday, somehow, I'm going to do something really important, maybe even miraculous. Well, now what do you expect to do, discover the missing link? Yes, Stewart. What is this miracle you expect to perform? Well, I don't know exactly. Ever since I've been just a kid, I've been interested in chemistry, and I've had a feeling that someday I will perform an experiment, mix certain chemicals together, and something would happen that never happened before. Now you hear that, Stan? A miracle man. Amazing, my dear Bob. Simply amazing. I know it sounds silly, but the things I dream about always seem to work out. Well, would you mind telling us the last miracle that worked out? Well, this. This? Well, what do you mean? Well, as long as I can remember, I've always wanted to belong to a fraternity, and here I am. I mean, you invited me. Oh, just a minute there, fellow. Mr. Stewart, it's been awfully nice of you to come over and visit with us, and someday we'll have you back again. But now we've got some studying to do, so if you don't mind. No, no, not at all. It was nice of you to invite me over. Well, good night, fellas. Good night. Good night. Of all the scurrying crackpots. Did you see the look in his eye when he was talking about miracles? It'll be a miracle if he ever gets back into this house again, I'll tell you that. What in the world ever made you ask him over here? Well, I didn't know. How was I to know he's a crackpot? I'll pledge him to our fraternity. Pledge him to the booby hatch. Mr. Stewart, if you please, Mr. Stewart. Yes, Professor? Mr. Stewart, might I ask if you're anxious to sever your relationship with this university? No, sir. Then might I ask why in creation you persist in ignoring my warnings? In this laboratory you're to perform the experiments given you to perform. Understand? Given you to perform. Yes, sir. Then might I ask why you persist in your, shall I call it, original experiments? Perhaps it's your intention to blow up the university. Or just the laboratory. I'm sorry. You'll be more than sorry if I find you doing this sort of thing again. Now take down this apparatus and continue with the work on your textbook. Yes, sir. This is my last warning, so bear it in mind. Oh, hello, Stewart. How about I loan him your notebook for a few hours? Oh, hello, Jackson. You haven't been to lab much, have you? No, no I haven't, but I can make it up. Well, we've been pretty busy over at the house. Initiations and all that sort of thing. Yeah. Jackson. Yeah? You never invited me back. I thought maybe you forgot. Oh, well, you know how those things are. I wrote my mother that I was joining your fraternity. Well, that was a sap thing to do. Was it? Well, we hadn't pledged you, Stan. Simply invited you over so I could talk to you. But you said you wanted me to come back. Oh, now look here, fellow. Don't be stupid about this. We didn't pledge you, so that's that. And you're not going to pledge me? Certainly not. But why? I don't have to tell you why. But you've got to tell me. Oh, quit pawing me, will you? All right, you're asking for it, so here it is. We didn't pledge you because we think you're a crackpot. A what? A crackpot. You talk about miracles. You spend every minute of your time here in the lab, monkeying around with things you don't know anything about, getting yourself in all kinds of trouble. Dan, you look like a first-class screwball. But I'm just trying to make... I don't care whatever it is you're trying. It isn't normal. I'll bet you never had a glass of beer in your life. And if a girl ever looked at you, you'd fall over in a faint. Then you're not going to pledge me? You're not going to pledge me? No, we're not going to pledge you. So if your mama expects you to be in a fraternity, you better start cooking up one of those miracles, fellow. Our first-class miracle. Sleep. It's so late. Sleep. Got to sleep. Not gonna pledge. That's what he said. Not gonna pledge me. Why do I keep thinking about it? If I could only sleep. Sleep. We think you're a crackpot. Oh, I've got to stop thinking about these things. It's not healthy to think what I'm thinking. Crackpot. Not gonna pledge. Crackpot. What's the matter with my head? I hear them talking in it over and over and over again. I'm not crazy. I'm not. I'm as good as you are. I'm as good as both of you put together. Stop saying that. Stop saying it. I'll show you. I'll show you both. I'm better than you are. I'm better than anybody. I'll show you. I'll show you. I'll show you. I'll show you. Talk about miracles. I'll give you miracles. The lab. Got to get into it. I'll give you miracles. Dark in there. Got to get in. Oh, blasted door. Got to get in. Window. I'll show you. So dark in here. Got to find a lab table. Got to make a miracle. Who's there? Who's there, I say? Watchman. Come on now. Who's there? Talk up. You don't have to get so excited. I'm a student. Student, eh? Let's have a look at you. That flashlight. You're blinding me. I've got to see who you are, don't I? Yeah, I know you. Senior on the campus. I told you I'm a student. Well, that don't give you no right to be here after hours. How'd you get in here? Oh, broke a window now, did you? I didn't break the window. But I heard the glass. So did I, and I followed the man in here. Man, what are you talking about? Give me your flashlight and I'll show you. All right. Here. Look behind you. Oh! No one will stop me. No one. Miracle. I've got to make one. Got to. Got to. Got to. 10cc barium. 5cc selenium oxychloride. Oh, good, good. You're working out just as I planned. Who's there? Who's that working there? Professor. Oh, it's you, Stuart. And after all my warnings. You're just in time, Professor. Yes, just in time to have you thrown out of the university. What are you doing there? What is this mess of equipment? It's my miracle. Miracle? What are you talking about? My miracle. Are you insane? Take it apart, all of it, at once. Listen to it bubbling. Beautiful sound, isn't it, Professor? Take it apart, I tell you. Empty out the retort. No. No, I've got to wait. Are you mad? Turn out the burners. No, all right. I'll turn them off for you. No. Stay where you are. Stuart, put down that acid. I'll smash the bottle on your head if you touch anything on the table. No, don't throw it. Put the bottle of acid down, Stuart. Please. My experiment. My miracle. Bubbling and boiling and stewing. It will work, Professor. It's got to work. But what is it? I told them I'd create something that no other man has. I told them. And I will, Professor. You hear me? I will. But what? A solvent. A solvent more powerful than anything the world has ever known. What do you mean? What are you talking about? Listen to it bubbling. You said solvent. Explain yourself. Yes, a solvent. A solvent that will dissolve steel like a hot flame. What do you say? You heard me say it. A solvent that will dissolve steel faster than a razor cutting through paper. Do you know what that means? Run a line of this liquid across a steel girder. The girder will crumple like a falling tree. Pour some of my solvent into a glass shell and bomb the cities. I tell you it'll make war too horrible for men to endure. You crazy boy, you. You know what you're talking about? I'm talking about that. That liquid there. Listen to it. Listen to it sing. Why, no such solvent exists. Selenium oxychloride perhaps, but to do the impossible things you talked about would require a quantity so... Oh, the beaker. It cracked. Do something. That liquid's flying all over my bench. My laboratory. The stone to the bench. It's eating through the stone. Stop it. The liquid. It's eating through the stone bench. No. No, it can't be. It's eating through the slate of the floor. The hole's getting bigger and bigger. Run. Run. I've done it. I've created something no other man has done. A solvent that dissolves anything. Anything. Anything. Hey, what happened? What's the matter? The lamp. I guess it's on fire. Where's the fire? I can't see anything. The whole school's out here. Hey. Hey, fellas. What's up? Nobody seems to know. Something's going wrong in the lab. The fireman won't let us in. Something burning? I don't know. Can't get near enough to find out. I can't see any fire. Plenty of smoke going. Plenty of excitement. Read about it tomorrow on paper, I'll bet you. Hey, listen to that sound. It sounds like water. Gosh, what is it? Hey, everybody back. The building. It's about to crash. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. I did it. I did it. A solvent that dissolves anything. Anything. We leave our The Devil and Mr. O's Story of the Whole for a welcome breath and a necessary message from your station. And now back to The Devil and Mr. O's Story of the Whole. Hey, Chief. Chief, look at this. What's the matter, Murph? Somebody have six doublers? There's been a lot of this, Chief. Came in over the news wires. Read it. Additional on Whitmore University. Mysterious cavity on the left side of the building. Additional on Whitmore University. Mysterious cavity on campus. Growing larger hourly. More followers. Mysterious cavity. Hey, what is this? A dentist at Werder's Middle School? Remember, Chief, a couple hours ago, that flash about something eating a hole so big, a building fell in it. This is the follow-up. The thing's getting bigger. What do you want to do about it? Forget it. What? Don't you see through a gag when it hits you in the face? Somebody's just having fun on the wires. Mysterious cavity growing bigger. Well, when it's as big as a hole in your head, that'll be news, Murph. That'll be news. Anything. It dissolves anything. And I did it. I discovered it. I discovered it. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Hello. What is it? Yes, yes, this is Dr. Whitmore. Who is this? Who? National News Service. Now look here, my good men, it's four o'clock in the morning, and I'm supposed to be resting. My vacation, you know. What? My university. Building collapsed. What? Are you sure? No, no, I can't give you any sort of statement. Now hang up, man. I've got to get the operator. Operator. Operator. Give me long distance. Give me... What? Long distance is calling? Well, put them on. Put them on. Hello. Hello. Yes, this is he. Rogers? Yes, Rogers. What? He did. That's impossible. Larger? But how could it grow larger? Chemicals? Are you drunk men? Insane? It's impossible. Impossible. But you must do something. Something. Listen, mister, I'm a fireman, not a magician. Put that hole 20 feet wider than it was 10 minutes ago. Listen, I don't know what it's all about. No fire and the ground's burning right away. We have five million dollars worth of property on this ground. If that holds friends... For peace sake, leave me alone, will you? We've been throwing water on the edges of the thing ever since the building fell in, but it don't do no good. It don't do no good. Gentlemen, listen to this out of tonight's paper. The latest news on the Whitmore University mystery. What at first was treated lightly by all newspapers as either a hoax or a shifting of earth stratum has now developed into an authentic yet unbelievable situation. The hole which began at the site of the chemical laboratory building is now 300 feet in diameter and spreading with unbelievable rapidity. Fire departments and fire experts from all neighboring communities within a radius of 100 miles have been called in, but have been helpless to combat the rapidly spreading pit. Many conflicting theories have been propounded as to the cause of the cave-in, but at last reports nothing definite had been determined. That's enough, Professor Parker. What about the solvent? Unbelievable, unexplainable as it is, it is apparently self-regenerating and oxidizing anything it comes in contact with so quickly that we see no fire but only the rapidly growing cavity where the earth is being consumed. But Professor Parker, what is this solvent? Surely you don't expect us to believe that this student you were telling us about... I mean exactly that. Oh, preposterous. It's a fault in the structure of the earth. There is no such thing as a self-regenerating solvent. Simple cave-in, that's all it is. Gentlemen, gentlemen, if you please, what I know I know. Oh, it's preposterous. Gentlemen, if you please, if my professional reputation is not enough to substantiate what I've said, then at least you'll listen to the boy himself. He's here, listen to him. Why should we? Yes, gentlemen, if you'll listen, I'll tell you. You'd better listen to me. Gentlemen, please. What Professor Parker said is true, it is a solvent. It dissolves anything it touches quickly, furiously. The byproducts of that dissolution give it new strength and movement. And I discovered it, gentlemen. I. I know, but what will happen? What can we do? We can wait. Wait? Wait? How can we wait? Look out there. The hole's within two feet of another building already. You've got to stop it. At once. The building. The foundation's under mine. The mine's crashing. Mother in heaven, Harris Hall, caved right in the hole. Professor Parker, you boy, listen. Which chemicals did you use? We've got to fight it with chemicals. Spread them around the edge, neutralize the solvent. Yes, yes, that's it, chemicals. We'll neutralize the reaction. No, gentlemen, listen, listen. You may neutralize the reaction at the edges of the hole, but you forget one thing. What? What are you talking about? The solvent is eating downward at many times the rate it's eating outward. You may neutralize the reaction at the edges of the hole, but have you forgotten? It's eaten the hole a quarter of a mile deep already, and it's eating into the earth faster and faster. How are you going to stop that? How are you going to stop it? Faster, faster and faster at an ever-increasing rate, this strange cancer on the surface is eating away. It is now approximately 14 hours since the phenomenon began, and already it has eaten outward a distance approximately one mile in diameter with a resulting damage of over a million and a half in property. Truly the most astounding factor in this catastrophe is the fact that the hole is increasing in depth at an unbelievable rate. At our last reports approximately 10 minutes ago, the pit had reached a depth of approximately three miles, and experts apparently refused to predict how much further this earth cancer will go. What only a handful of hours ago was a quiet section of the country in which stood the Whitmore University is now a great gaping pit in the surface of the earth out of which rise strange noxious gases as that burning something eats deeper and deeper and deeper into the bowels of the earth. The latest sonic recordings indicate that the shaft has now reached a depth of 11 miles, 2,342 feet. I'm right on the scene and will continue to send reports as quickly as I can. Sure is a crowd here. Yeah, half million they say. Yeah, watching and waiting, and for what? Ain't it ever gonna stop, Sam? Don't ask me, I don't know. It's going deeper and deeper every minute. There ain't no stopping it. Listen to me, scared ain't there, every one of them? Well, aren't you? Yeah, sure. That hole going deeper and deeper into the ground and nobody can stop it. And what happens when it gets all the way through? Nobody knows. Sure, I'm scared. Scared plenty. Earthquake. Help, send help! Barcato erupting. City on fire. Marsh all clear. Tidal waves sweeping inland. Nothing can stop it. Nothing, nothing! Earthquake. Fire. Tidal waves. We're coming to an end. Judgment of God. Judgment of God! From Siberia to Cape Town to San Francisco and around the world again. I tell you, the earth's ripping apart. And I tell you, it's that hole in the ground that's done it. It's affected the rotation of the earth. Unbalanced things. Yes, and it's biting deeper every minute. What'll happen when it eats through to the other side? The ocean pouring through. We'll die. We'll all die. Who's to blame? Who's to blame? Who's to blame? It's that kid who's to blame. Yeah, we read it in the papers. That crazy college kid. There, there he is! That's him, that's him. No, no, let me go, you fools, you! I've done a great thing, a wonderful thing. Created something no one ever thought of. No, let me down! Let me down! Let me down, you fools! I started the song, but I didn't know this would happen. You can't blame me for a miracle! Throw him in the hole! No! No! He made it! No, don't throw me down in there! There's no bottom to it! No, no! Here, you put him down here on the grass. Dead? Yes. Boy, oh boy, will this be a sensation on the campus. But, Watchman, how did it happen? Well, me, I'm making my rounds of the grounds as usual, and all at once in the moonlight, I see this fella walking across the grass. So I go up to him and I see the fella's walking in his sleep. In his sleep? Yeah. And just when I start to grab him easy, like, he pulls loose, yells something about, don't throw me in, don't throw me in. Then he runs across the campus and dives head first down into the swimming pool, and it's empty. When I pull him out, he's like he is now. Busted neck. But who is he? Anyone recognize him? Yeah, I know him. Stuart's his name. Ray Stuart. Kind of a screwy little crackpot. Always talking about creating miracles with chemicals. I wonder what he thought was happening to him diving down that hole. This is Mr. Oll, Arch Obler. Listen, if you expect me to talk about large excavations, I'm just not going to do it. Instead, I'd much rather talk to you about your living forever. Of course, that's after a word from your station. This is Mr. Oll again. To live forever, to never die, to know immortality, do you want that? Then listen with me to our next play, Live Forever. And let's decide together whether we want an infinite number of birthdays or ultimate peace. Next time then, live forever. It is later than you think. Thank you.
