The Air Trust Part 6

"Quite ready, sir," the other answered. "If you'll be so good as to step into the electro-chemical building?"

Flint very graciously signified his willingness thus to condescend; and without delay, accompanied by the still incredulous Waldron, and followed by Herzog, he pa.s.sed out of the administration building, through a covered pa.s.sage and into the electro-chemical works.

A variety of strange odors and stranger sounds filled this large brick structure, windowless on every side and lighted only by broad skylights of milky wire-gla.s.s--this arrangement being due to the extreme secrecy of many processes here going forward. The partners had no intention that any spying eyes should ever so much as glimpse the work in this department; work involving foods, fuels, power, lighting, almost the entire range of the vast network of exploiting media they had already flung over a tired world.

"This way, gentlemen," ventured Herzog, pointing toward a metal door at the left of the main room. He unlocked this, which was guarded by a combination lock, like that of a bank vault, and waited for them to enter; then closed it after them, and made quite sure the metal door was fast.

A peculiar, pungent smell greeted the partners' nostrils as they glanced about the inner laboratory. At one side an electric furnace was glowing with graphite crucibles subjected to terrific heat. On the other a dynamo was humming. Before them a broad, tiled bench held a strange a.s.sortment of test tubes, retorts and complex apparatus of gla.s.s and gleaming metal. The whole was lighted by a strong white light from above, through the milk-hued gla.s.s--one of Herzog's own inventions, by the way; a wonderful, light-intensifying gla.s.s, which would bend but not break; an invention which, had he himself profited by it, would have brought him millions, but which the partners had exploited without ever having given him a single penny above his very moderate salary.

"Is that it?" demanded Flint, a glitter lighting up his morphia-contracted pupils. He jerked his thumb at a complicated nexus of tubes, bra.s.s cylinders, coiled wires and glistening retorts which stood at one end of the broad work-bench.

"That is it, sir," answered Herzog, apologetically, while "Tiger"

Waldron's hard face hardened even more. "Only an experimental model, you understand, sir, but--"

"It gets results?" queried Flint sharply. "It produces oxygen and nitrogen on a scale that indicates success, with adequate apparatus?"

"Yes, sir. I believe so, sir. No doubt about it; none whatever."

"Good!" exclaimed the Billionaire. "Now show us!"

"With pleasure, sir. But first, let me explain, a little."

"Well, what?" demanded Flint. His partner, meanwhile, had drawn near the apparatus, and was studying it with a most intense concentration. Plain to see, beneath this man's foppish exterior and affected cynicism, dwelt powerful purposes and keen intelligence.

"Explain what?" repeated the Billionaire. "As far as details go, I'm not interested. All I want is results. Go ahead, Herzog; start your machine and let me see what it can do."

"I will, sir," acceded the scientist. "But first, with your permission, I'll point out a few of its main features, and--"

"d.a.m.n the main features!" cried Flint. "Get busy with the demonstration!"

"Hold on, hold on," now interrupted Waldron. "Let him discourse, if he wants to. Ever know a scientist who wasn't primed to the muzzle with expositions? Here, Herzog," he added, turning to the inventor, "I'll listen, if n.o.body else will."

Undecided, Herzog smiled nervously. Even Flint had to laugh at his indecision.

"All right, go on," said the Billionaire. "Only for G.o.d's sake, make it brief!"

Herzog, thus adjured, cleared his throat and blinked uneasily.

"Oxygen," he said. "Yes, I can produce it quickly, easily and in large quant.i.ties. As a gas, or as a liquid, which can be shipped to any desired point and there transformed into gaseous form. Liquid air can also be produced by this same machine, for refrigerating purposes. You understand, of course, that when liquid air evaporates, it is only the nitrogen that goes back into the atmosphere at 313 degrees below zero.

The residue is pure liquid oxygen. In other words, this apparatus will make money as a liquid air plant, and furnish you oxygen as a by-product.

"It will also turn out nitrogen, for fertilizing purposes. The income from a full-sized machine, on this pattern, from all three sources, should be very large indeed."

"Good," put in Waldron. "And liquid air, for example, would cost how much to produce?"

"With power-cost at half a cent per H.P. hour, about $2.50 a ton. The oxygen by-product alone will more than pay for that, in purifying and cooling buildings, or used to promote combustion in locomotives and other steam engines. The liquid air itself can be used as a motive power for a certain type of expansion engine, or--"

"There, there, that's enough!" interposed Flint, brusquely. "We don't need any of your advice or suggestions, Herzog. As far as the disposal of the product is concerned, we can take care of that. All we want from you is the a.s.surance that that product can be obtained, easily and cheaply, and in unlimited quant.i.ties. Is that the case?"

"It is, sir."

"All right. And can liquid oxygen be easily transported any considerable distance?"

"Yes, sir. In what is known as Place's Vacuum-jacketed Insulated Container, it can be kept for weeks at a time without any appreciable loss."

Flint pondered a moment, then asked, again:

"Could large tanks, holding say, a million gallons, be built on that principle, for wholesale storage? And could vacuum-jacketed pipes be laid, for conveying liquid oxygen or its gas?"

"No reason why not, sir. Yes, I may say all that is quite feasible."

"Very well, then," snapped Flint. "That's enough for the present. Now, show us your machine at work! Start it Herzog. Let's see what you can do!"

The Billionaire's eyes glittered as Herzog laid a hand on a gleaming switch. Even Waldron forgot to smoke.

"Gentlemen, observe," said Herzog, as he threw the lever.

CHAPTER VI.

OXYGEN, KING OF INTOXICATORS.

A soft humming note began to vibrate through the inner laboratory--a note which rose in pitch, steadily, as Herzog shoved the lever from one copper post to another, round the half-circle.

"I am now heating the little firebrick furnace," said the scientist. "In Norway, they use an alternating current of only 5,000 volts, between water-cooled copper electrodes, as I have already told you. I am using 30,000 volts, and my electrodes, my own invention, are--"

"Never mind," growled Flint. "Just let's see some of the product--some liquid oxygen, that's all. The why and wherefore is your job, not ours!"

Herzog, with a pained smile, bent and peered through a red gla.s.s bull's-eye that now had begun to glow in the side of his apparatus.

"The arc is good," he muttered, as to himself. "Now I will throw in the electro-magnets and spread it; then switch in my intensifying condenser, and finally set the turbine fans to work, to throw air through the field. Then we shall see, we shall see!"

Suiting the action to the words, he deftly touched here a b.u.t.ton, there a lever; and all at once a shrill buzzing rose above the lower drone of the induction coils.

"Gentlemen," said Herzog, straightening up and facing his employers, "the process is now already at work. In five minutes--yes, in three--I shall have results to show you!"

"Good!" grunted Waldron. "That's all we're after, results. That's the only way you hold your job, Herzog, just getting results!"

He relighted his cigar, which had gone out during Herzog's explanation--for "Tiger" Waldron, though he could drop thousands at roulette without turning a hair, never yet had been known to throw away a cigar less than half smoked. Flint, meanwhile, took out a little morocco-covered note book and made a few notes. In this book he had kept an outline of his plan from the very first; and now with pleasure he added some memoranda, based on what Herzog had just told him, as well as observations on the machine itself.

Thus two minutes pa.s.sed, then three.

"Time's up, Herzog!" exclaimed Waldron, glancing at the electric clock on the wall. "Where's the juice?"

"One second, sir," answered the scientist. Again he peeked through the glowing bull's-eye. Then, his face slightly pale, his bulging eyes blinking nervously, he took two small flint gla.s.s bottles, set them under a couple of pipettes, and deftly made connections.