e. He has done a lot of work on radio-activity and that sort
of thing, and I think he would like to work on it."

"All right. Please get it started without delay. Give him about a
quarter of the solution and have the rest put in the vault. Be sure that
his laboratory is set up far enough away from everything else to avoid
trouble in case of an explosion, and caution him not to work on too much
copper at once. I gather that an ounce or so will be plenty."

* * * * *

The chemist went back to his laboratory and sought his first assistant.

"Van," he began, "Mr. Brookings has been listening to some lunatic who
claims to have solved the mystery of liberating intra-atomic energy."

"That's old stuff," the assistant said, laughing. "That and perpetual
motion are always with us. What did you tell him?"

"I didn't get a chance to tell him anything--he told me. Yesterday, you
know, he asked me what would happen if it could be liberated, and I
answered truthfully that lots of things would happen, and volunteered
the information that it was impossible. Just now he called me in, gave
me this bottle of solution, saying that it contained the answer to the
puzzle, and wanted me to work it out. I told him that it was out of my
line and that I was afraid of it--which I would be if I thought there
was anything in it--but that it was more or less in your line, and he
said to put you on it right away. He also said that expense was no
object; to set up an independent laboratory a hundred miles off in the
woods, to be safe in case of an explosion; and to caution you not to use
too much copper at once--that an _ounce or so_ would be plenty!"

"An ounce! Ten thousand tons of nitroglycerin! I'll say an ounce would
be plenty, if the stuff is any good at all, which of course it isn't.
Queer, isn't it, how the old man would fall for anything like that? How
did he explain the failure of the discoverer to develop it himself?"

"He said the discoverer is not available," answered Chambers with a
laugh. "I'll bet he isn't available--he's back in St. Elizabeth's again
by this time, where he came from. I suggested that we get either Seaton
or DuQuesne of Rare Metals to help us on it, and he said that they had
both refused to touch it, or words to that effect. If those two turned
down a chance to work on a thing as big as this would be, there probably
is nothing in this particular solution that is worth a rap. But what