EDISON'S LAB
At Menlo Park, Raoul, Gustave, and Andre were visiting Edison's lab. Thomas Edison was showing them around. They were impressed by all kinds of fancy gadgets, lights, speakers, and so on.
An assistant turned on a phonograph. It played the song "The Beauty Underneath".
"Beautiful. Indeed." The visitors nodded.
Gustave was fascinated. He asked, "Mr. Edison. Gas lamps are adjustable. Can light bulb do the same?"
Edison replied, "Yes, young gentleman. Let me show you."
Edison walked up to a display device. He glided a control back and forth, and a group of light bulbs brightened and dimmed back and forth.
"Wow!" Gustave was impressed.
"When there is more electric current, the light turns brighter. When there is less, the light turns dimmer." Edison explained.
"I see!" Gustave nodded.
As they moved on, suddenly Gustave pointed to a giant speaker and asked, "Mr. Edison. Is this the same speaker as those in 'Phantom's Opera'?"
"What?" Raoul was startled.
"Are you talking about the theme park on Coney Island?" Edison puzzled for a second before he figured out what Gustave was talking about.
"Yes." Gustave confirmed.
"You are right." Edison answered. "Yes, those speakers in the theme park were made by us. They are fancy, aren't they?"
"Yes!" Gustave agreed.
"Phantom's Opera? In theme park?" Raoul still couldn't believe his ears.
"Yes," Gustave answered, "Phantom's Opera is a maze in the theme park. It has speakers with fantastic sound effect. It's a great playground!"
Raoul and Andre looked at each other.
Edison was obviously very proud. He added, "Besides that, the theme park used many other inventions from us. They should all be ready by the gala night. You don't want to miss it, young man."
"Of course not!" Gustave answered, "I heard about it."
"You are our special guest, Mr. Edison." Andre said.
"Yes." Edison replied. "It's my honor, Mr. Andre. Besides, there is no better place than the theme park to introduce our new inventions."
Edison continued, "A designer of the park visited us before. I can tell he is a real genius, an architect, and a musician. He found novel use of our electric and acoustic systems."
"I am glad he is my customer, not my competitor." Edison smiled.
"What did he look like?" Gustave asked nervously.
"Definitely strange. He wore a mask." Edison added.
Both Raoul and the manager gasped.
"Is his face deformed?" Raoul asked.
"That I can't tell, Sir," Edison answered. "And I don't mind. If his face were indeed deformed, I would respect him even more. Do you know him?"
"Or no!" Andre groaned.
"You didn't know anything about it, Andre?" Raoul questioned.
"No. The theme park business was masterminded by Madame Giry and some other partners." Andre answered nervously. "I just took over the routine management…not again!"
"We must go back now!" Raoul said.
"What's happening, Dad? Mom seemed nervous at the theme park too." Gustave asked.
"No time to explain now." Raoul responded.
Edison was surprised, but stopped short of asking why, "Well, you can always visit us another time."
"Especially you, young gentleman." He waved goodbye to Gustave.