ell tinkled.

"The connection is made," murmured Von Stein. He lifted a hand for
silence: then his fingers leaped among the gadgets on the table. After
that came a brief period, measured by seconds, of immobility. Then the
table sank from view, the copper bowl lifted, and Dr. von Stein went
back to his chair.

"She will be here shortly," he said. "If that does not change your
mind...."

He shrugged. Parker knew what that shrug meant. He searched his mind
for a plan and found none. Better die fighting than yield, or risk the
vengeance of Friedrich von Stein. If he could get the doctor away from
the desk where he controlled the blue-white flame there might be a
chance to do something. Von Stein was by far the larger man, but
Parker had been an athlete all his life. If....

"That mass of copper and platinum," he said, tentatively, "will make
you master of the world!"

"My brain, my intelligence, has made me master of the world!"
corrected Von Stein, proudly. He was touched in the right spot now.
"You have not seen all!"

* * * * *

He sprang up and went to one of the tables. From his pocket he took a
piece of paper and crumpled it into a ball while, with the other hand,
he made some electrical connections to a plate of metal set into the
surface of the table. Next he placed the wad of paper on the plate.
Then, standing at arm's length from the apparatus, he pressed a
button. Instantly the paper disappeared behind a screen of the colors
of the spectrum, from red to violet. The banded colors were there for
a minute fraction of a second. Then there was nothing where the paper
had been on the plate. Von Stein smiled as he stepped away from the
table.

"The electron is formed by the crossing of two lines of force," he
said, "and the interaction of positive and negative polarity. The
electron is a stress in the ether, nothing more, but it is the stuff
of which all matter is made. Thought is vibration in one dimension;
matter in two. You have just seen me untie the knot, dissociate the
electrons, or what you will. In plain language I have caused matter to
vanish utterly. That paper is not burned up. It no longer exists in
any form. The earth upon which we stand, Parker, can be dissolved like
mist before the sun!"

Appalled as he was at this man who boasted and made good his terrible
boasts Allen Parker had not forgotten the purpose that was in him. Now
was his chance, while Von Stein st