le Stevens piled blocks and plates of
platinum beneath its base.

"Well, here's where I peel down as far as the law allows. This is going
to be real work, girl--no fooling. It'd help a lot if this outfit were
sending out a few thousand kilo-franks instead of standing idle."

"How would that help?"

"It's a heat-engine, you know--works by absorbing heat. The cold air
sinks--I imagine it pretty nearly blows a gale down the side of this
cone when it's working--and hot air rushes in to take its place. I could
use a little cool breeze right now," and Stevens, stripped to the waist,
bent to the lever of the powerful hydraulic jack.

Beads of sweat gathered upon his broad back, uniting to form tiny
rivulets, and the girl became highly concerned about him.

"Let me help you, Steve--I'm pretty husky, too, you know."

"Sure you are, ace, but this is a job for a truck-horse, not a
tenderly-nurtured maiden of the upper classes. You can help, though, by
breaking out that welding outfit and getting it ready while I'm doing
this bending to prepare for the welding."

Under the urge of that mighty jack the ends of the broken bus-bar rose
into place, while far off in space the Titanians clustered about their
visiray screens, watching, in almost unbelieving amazement, the
supernatural being who labored in that reeking inferno of heat and
poisonous vapor--who labored almost naked and entirely unprotected,
refreshing himself from time to time with drafts of molten water!

"All x, Barkovis--that's high, I guess." Stevens flipped perspiration
from his hot forehead with a wet finger and straightened his weary back.
"Now you can put this jack away where we had it. Then you might trundle
me over enough of that spare metal to fill up this hole, and I'll put on
my suit and goggles and practice welding on this floor and the roof, to
get the feel of the metal before I tackle the bar."

The hole in the floor was filled with scrap and soon sparks were flying
wildly as the searing beam of Stevens' welding projector bit viciously
into the stubborn alloy of noble metals; fashioning a smooth, solid
floor where the yawning aperture had been. Then, lifted with his tools
and plates to the roof, the man repaired that hole also.

"Now I know enough about it to do a good job on the bar," he decided,
and brick after brick of alloy was fused into the crack, until only a
smoothly rounded bulge betrayed that a break had ever existed in that
mighty rod of