time, gentlemen, you can handle tons of these gases, if you
like--thousands of tons, unlimited tons.

"The Siemens and Halske people, and the Great Falls, S.C., plant, will
be mere puttering experimenters beside you. For neither they nor any
other manufacturers have any knowledge of the vital process--my secret,
polarizing transformer, which does the work in one-tenth the time and at
one-hundredth the cost of any other known process. For example, see
here?"

He turned the faucet, disconnected the flask and handed it to Flint.

"There, sir," he remarked, "is a half-pint of pure liquid oxygen, drawn
from the air in less than eight minutes, at a cost of perhaps two-tenths
of a cent. On a large scale the cost can be vastly reduced. Are you
satisfied, sir?"

Flint nodded, curtly.

"You'll do, Herzog," he replied--his very strongest form of
commendation. "You're not half bad, after all. So this is liquid oxygen,
eh? Very cheap, and very cold?"

His eyes gleamed with joy at sight of the translucent potent stuff--the
very stuff of life, its essence and prime principle, without which
neither plant nor animal nor man can live--oxygen, mother of all life,
sustainer of the world.

"Very cheap, yes, sir," answered the scientist. "And cold, enormously
cold. The specimen you hold in your hand, in that vacuum-protected
flask, is more than three hundred degrees below zero. One drop of it on
your palm would burn it to the bone. Incidentally, let me tell you
another fact--"

"And that is?"

"This specimen is the allotropic or condensed form of oxygen, much more
powerful than the usual liquified gas."

"Ozone, you mean?"

"Precisely. Would you like to sense its effect as a ventilating agent?"

"No danger?"

"None, sir. Here, allow me."

Herzog took the flask, pressed a little spring and liberated the top. At
once a whitish vapor began to coil from the neck of the bottle.

"Hm!" grunted Waldron, smiling. "Mountain winds and sea breezes have
nothing on that!" He sniffed with appreciation. "Some gas, all right!"

"You're right, Wally," answered the Billionaire. "If this works out on a
large scale, in all its details--well--I needn't impress its importance
on you!"

Yielding to the influence of the wonderful, life-giving gas, the rather
close air of the laboratory, contaminated by a variety of chemical
odors, and vitiated by its recent loss of oxygen, had begun to freshen
and purify itself in an astonishing manner. One w