As they swung past the aviation field and neared the Oakwood Heights station, a train pulled out. Down the road came tramping a workingman in overalls and jumper, with a canvas bag of tools swinging from his brawny right hand. As he walked, striding along with splendid energy, he whistled to himself—no cheap ragtime air, but Handel’s Largo, with an appreciation which bespoke musical feeling of no common sort.
The Billionaire caught sight of him, just as the car slowed to take the sharp turn by the station. Instant recognition followed. Flint’s eyes narrowed sharply.
“Hm! The same fellow,” he grunted to himself. “The same rascal who stood beside us on the ferry boat, as we were talking over our plans. Now, what the devil?”
Shadowed by a kind of instinctive uneasiness, not yet definite or clear but more in the nature of a premonition of trouble, Flint gazed fixedly at the mechanic as the car swung round the bend in the road. The glance was returned.
Yielding to some kind of imperative curiosity, the Billionaire leaned over the side of the car—leaned out, with his coat flapping in the stiff wind—and for a moment peered back at the disquieting workman.
Then the car swept him out of sight, and Flint resumed his seat again.
He did not know—for he had not seen it happen—that in that moment the slippery, leather-covered note-book had slid from his lolling coat pocket and had fallen with a sharp slap on the white macadam, skidded along and come to rest in the ditch.
The workingman, however, who had paused and turned to look after the speeding car, he had seen all this.
A moment he stood there, peering. Then, retracing his steps with resolution he picked up the little book and slid it into the pocket of his jeans.
Deserted was the road. Not a soul was to be seen, save the crossing flagman, musing in his chair beside his little hut, quite oblivious to everything but a rank cob pipe. The workman’s act had not been noticed.
Nobody had observed him. Nobody knew. Not a living creature had witnessed the slight deed on which, by a strange freak of fate, the history of the world was yet to turn.
CHAPTER VIII.
ONE UNBIDDEN, SHARES GREAT SECRETS.
Immediately on discovering his loss—which was soon after having reached his office—Flint, in something like a fright, telephoned down to the Oakwood Heights laboratory and instructed Herzog, in person, to make a careful search for it and to report results inside an hour. Even though some of the essentials of his plan were written in a code of his own devising, Flint paled before the possible results should the book fall into the hands of anybody intelligent enough to fathom its meaning.
“Damn the luck!” he ejaculated, pacing the office floor, his fists knotted. “If it had been a pocket book with a few thousand inside, that would have been a trifle. But to lose my plan of campaign—God grant no harm may come of it!”
Waldron, slyly observing him, could not suppress a smile.
“Calling on God, eh?” sneered he. “You must be agitated. I haven’t heard that kind of entreaty on your lips, Flint, since the year of the big coal strike, when you prayed God the gun-men might ‘get’ the strikers before they could organize. Come, come, man, brace up! Your book will turn up all right; and even if it doesn’t there’s no cause for alarm. It would take a man of extraordinary acumen to read your hieroglyphics! Cheer up, Flint. There’s really nothing to excite you.”
The Billionaire thus adjured, sat down and tried to calm his agitation.
“Rotten luck, eh?” he queried. “But after all, Herzog is likely to find the book. And even if he doesn’t, I guess we’re safe enough. The very boldness of the plan—supposing even that the finder could grasp it—would put it outside the seeming range of the possible. It’s hardly a hundred to one shot any harm may come of it.”
“All right, then, let it go at that,” said Waldron. “And now, to business. Suppose, for example, you’ve got a perfectly unlimited supply of oxygen-gas and liquid. How are you going to market it? Just what details have you worked out?”
Flint pondered a moment, before replying. At last he said:
“Of course you understand, Wally, I can’t give you every point. The whole thing will be an evolution, and new ideas and processes, new uses and demands will develop as time passes. But in the main, my idea is this: The big producing stations will steadily extract oxygen from the atmosphere, thus leaving the air increasingly poorer and less adapted to sustaining human life.
“I shall store the oxygen in vast tanks, like the ordinary gas-tanks to be found in every city, only much bigger. These tanks will be fed by pipe-lines from the central stations, thus.”
Flint drew toward him a sheet of his heavily embossed letter-paper, and, picking up a pencil, began to sketch a rough diagram. Waldron, making no comment, followed every stroke with keen interest.
“From these tanks,” the Billionaire continued, “smaller pipes will convey the gaseous oxygen to every house taking our service.”
“Just like ordinary gas?”
“Precisely. Each room will be fitted with an oxygen jet apparatus, something like a gas burner, with a safety device to prevent over supply and avoid the dangers of combustion.”
“Combustion?”
“Yes. In pure oxygen, a glowing bit of wire will burst into flame. Your cigar, there, would catch fire, from the merest spark in its inmost folds. Too much oxygen in a room not only intoxicates the occupants—we’ve already seen that effect—but also develops a great fire risk. So we shall have to make some provision for that, Wally. It will be absolutely essential.”
“All right. Allowing it’s been made, what then?” asked “Tiger,” with extraordinary interest.
“Can’t you see? We’ll have every household under our absolute thumb?” And Flint pressed his thumb on the table to illustrate. “My God, man, think of it! Every city honeycombed by our pipes—yes, and every village and hamlet too, and even every farm house that can afford it! At first, the cost will be very low, till people have become accustomed to ozone as they are to water. The whole ventilation problem will be solved, at once and for all time. Where we can’t pipe in the ozone, we can use portable vaporizers, to be supplied once a month, and of sufficient capacity to keep the air of an average-sized house perfectly pure for thirty days.
“Pure? More than pure! Exhilarating, life-giving, delicious! Under this system, Wally, the middle and upper classes will thrive as never before. They’ll grow in size and weight, in health and intelligence, under the steady influence of ozone, day and night. Every vital process will be stimulated. Our invention will mark a new era in the welfare of the world!”
“Bunk!” sneered Wally. “That’s all very well for your prospectuses and newspaper articles, old man, but the fact is we don’t give a damn whether it helps the world or wrecks it. We’re out for money and power. My motto is, Get ‘em and do good, if you can—but get ‘em anyhow! So you had better can the philanthropic part of it. Just show me the cash, and you can have all the credit!”
Flint shot a grim look at his partner, then continued:
“Don’t be flippant, Wally. This is a serious business and must be treated as such. In addition to the respiratory service, we can put in water-cooling and refrigerating services, at low cost, also cold-pipes for cooling houses in summer. In fine, we can immeasurably add to the health and comfort of the better classes; and can at last have everybody using our gas, which, registering through our own sealed meters, will flood us with wealth so vast as to make that of these Standard Oil pifflers look like the proverbial thirty cents!”
“Fine!” exclaimed Waldron, nodding approval. “Also, any time any rebellion develops we can merely shut off the supply in that quarter, and quickly reduce it. Or, again, we can increase the potency of the gas, and fairly intoxicate the people, till they stand for anything. Just fancy, now, our pipes connected with the sacred Halls of Congress and with the White House! Even if any difficulty could possibly be expected from these sources, just imagine how quickl
y we could nip it in the bud!”
“Quickly isn’t the word, Wally,” answered the Billionaire. “I tell you, old man, the world lies in our hands, today. And we have only to close our fingers, in order to possess it!”
He glanced at his own fingers, as though he visibly perceived the great world lying there for him to squeeze. Waldron’s eyes, following the Billionaire’s, saw that Flint’s hand was trembling, and understood the reason. More than three hours had passed—nay, almost four—since Flint had had any opportunity to take his necessary dose of morphia. Waldron arose, paced to the window and stood there looking out over the vast panorama of city, river and harbor, apparently absorbed in contemplation, but really keen to hear what Flint might do.
His expectations were not disappointed. Hardly had he turned his back, when he heard the desk-drawer open, furtively, and knew the Billionaire was taking out the little vial of white tablets, dearer to him than ever the caress of woman to a Don Juan. A moment later, the drawer closed again.
“He’ll do now, for a while,” thought Waldron, with satisfaction. “Let him go the limit, if he likes—the fool! The more he takes, the quicker I win. It’ll kill him yet, the dope will. And that means, my mastery of the world will be complete. Let him go it! The harder, the better!”
He turned back toward Flint, again, veiling in that impenetrable face of his the slightest hint or expression which might have told Flint that he understood the Billionaire’s vice. If Flint were Vulture, Waldron was Tiger, indeed. And so, for a brief moment, these two soulless men of gold and power stood eyeing each other, in silence.
Suddenly Waldron spoke.
“There’s one thing you’ve forgotten to speak of, Flint,” he said.
“And that is?” demanded the other, already calmed by the quick action of the subtle, enslaving drug.
“The effect on the world’s poor—on the toiling millions! The results of this innovation, in slum, and slave-quarter, and in the haunts of poverty. Your talk has all been of the middle and upper classes, and of the benefits accruing to them, from increased oxygen-consumption. But how about the others? Every ounce of oxygen you take out of the air, leaves it just so much poorer. Store thousands of tons of the life-giving gas, in monster tanks, and you vitiate the entire atmosphere. How about that? How can even the well-to-do breathe, then, outdoors, to say nothing of the poverty-stricken millions?”
Flint grimaced, showing a glint of his gold tooth—his substitute for a smile.
“That’s all reckoned for,” he answered. “I thought I made it quite clear, in our previous talk. To begin with, we will withdraw the oxygen from the atmosphere so slowly that at first there won’t be any noticeable effect on the outdoor air. For a while, the only thing that will be noticed by the world will be that our gas service, to private residences and institutions, will result in greatly increased comfort and health to the better classes. And the cost will be so low—at first, mind you, only at first—that every family of any means at all can take it. In fact, Wally, we can afford practically to give away the service, for the first year, until we get our grip firmly fixed on the throat of the world. Do you get the idea?”
Waldron nodded, as he drew leisurely on his cigar.
“Practical to a degree,” he answered. “That is, until the poor begin to gasp for breath. But what then?”
“By the time the outer atmosphere really begins to show the effect of withdrawing a considerable percentage of the oxygen,” Flint answered, “we will have our pocket respirators on the market. Well-to-do people will as soon think of going out without their shoes, as they will with their respirators. No, there won’t be any visible tubes or attachments, Wally. Nothing of that kind. Only, each person will carry a properly insulated cake of solidified oxygen that will evaporate through the special apparatus and surround him with a normally rich atmosphere. And—”
“Yes, but the poor? The workers? What of them?”
“Devil take them, if it comes to that!” retorted Flint, with some heat. “Who ever gives them any serious attention, as it is? Who bothers about their health? They eat and drink and breathe the leavings, anyhow—eat the cheapest and most adulterated food, drink the vilest slop and breathe the most vitiated slum air. Nobody cares, except perhaps those crazy Socialists that once in a while get up on the street-corner and howl about the rights of man and all that rubbish! Working-class? What do I care about the cattle? Let them die, if they want to! D’you suppose, for one minute, I’m going to limit or delay this big innovation, because there’s a working-class that may suffer?”
“They’ll do more than suffer, Flint, if you seriously depreciate the atmosphere. They’ll die!”
“Well, let them, and be damned to them!” retorted Flint, already showing symptoms of drug-stimulation. Waldron, smoking meanwhile, eyed him with a dangerous smile lurking in his cold eyes. “Let them, I say! They die off, now, twice or thrice as fast as the better classes, but what difference does it make? Great breeders, those people are. The more they die, the faster they multiply. Let them go their way and do as they like, so long as they don’t interfere with us! The only really important factor to reckon on is this, that with an impoverished air to breathe, their rebellious spirit will die out—the dogs!—and we’ll have no more talk of social revolution. We’ll draw their teeth, all right enough; or rather, twist the bowstring round their damned necks so tight that all their energy, outside of work, will be consumed in just keeping alive. Revolution, then? Forget it, Waldron! We’ll kill that viper once and for all!”
“Good idea, Flint,” the other replied, with approbation. “Only a master-mind like yours could have conceived it. I’m with you, all right enough. Only, tell me—do you really believe we can put this whole program through, without a hitch? Without a leak, anywhere? Without barricades in the streets, wild-eyed agitators howling, machine-guns chattering, and Hell to pay?”
Flint smiled grimly.
“Wait and see!” he growled.
“Maybe you’re right,” his partner answered. “But slow and easy is the only way.”
“Slow and easy,” Flint assented. “Of course we can’t go too fast. In 1850, for example, do you suppose the public would have tolerated the sudden imposition of monopolies? Hardly! But now they lie down under them, and even vote and fight to keep them! So, too, with this Air Trust. Time will show you I’m right.”
Waldron glanced at his watch.
“Long past lunch-time, Flint,” said he. “Enough of this, for now. And this afternoon, I’ve got that D. K. & E. directors’ meeting on hand. When shall we go on with our plans, and get down to specific details?”
“This evening, say?”
“Very well. At my house?”
“No. Too noisy. Run out to Englewood, to mine. We’ll be quiet there. And come early, Waldron. We’ve no end of things to discuss. The quicker we get the actual work under way, now, the better. You can see Catherine, too. Isn’t that an inducement?”
Thus ended the conference. It resumed, that night, in Flint’s luxurious study at “Idle Hour,” his superb estate on the Palisades. Waldron paid only a perfunctory court to Catherine, who manifested her pleasure by studied indifference. Both magnates felt relieved when she withdrew. They had other and larger matters under way than any dealing with the amenities of life.
Until past midnight the session in the study lasted, under the soft glow of the Billionaire’s reading-light. And many choice cigars were smoked, many sheets of paper covered with diagrams and calculations, many vast schemes of conquest expanded, ere the two masters said good-night and separated.
At the very hour of Waldron’s leave-taking, another man was pondering deeply, studying the problem from quite another angle, and—no less earnestly, than the two magnates—laying careful plans.
This man, sturdy, well-built and keen, smoked an old briar as he worked. A flannel shirt, open at the throat, showed a well-sinewed neck and powerful chest. Under the inverted cone of a shaded incandescent in his room
, at the electricians’ quarters of the Oakwood Heights enclosure, one could see the deep lines of thought and careful study crease his high and prominent brow.
From time to time he gazed out through the open window, off toward the whispering lines of surf on the eastern shores of Staten Island—the surf forever talking, forever striving to give its mystic message to the unheeding ear of man. And as he gazed, his blue eyes narrowed with the intensity of his thought. Once, as though some sudden understanding had come to him, he smote the pine table with a corded fist, and swore below his breath.
It was past two in the morning when he finally rose, stretched, yawned and made ready for sleep on his hard iron bunk.
“Can it be?” he muttered, as he undressed. “Can it be possible, or am I dreaming? No—this is no dream! This is reality; and thank God, I understand.”
Then, before he extinguished his light, he took from the table the material he had been studying over, and put it beneath his pillow, where he could guard it safe till morning.
The thing he thus protected was none other than a small note-book, filled with diagrams, jottings and calculations, and bound in red morocco covers.
That night, at Englewood—in the Billionaire’s home and in the workman’s simple room at Oakwood Heights—history was being made.
The outcome, tragic and terrible, who could have foreseen?
CHAPTER IX.
DISCHARGED.
Almost all the following morning, working at his bench in the electro-chemical laboratories of the great Oakwood Heights plant, Gabriel Armstrong pondered deeply on the problems and responsibilities now opening out before him.
The finding of that little red-leather note-book, he fully understood, had at one stroke put him in possession of facts more vital to the labor-movement and the world at large than any which had ever developed since the very beginning of Capitalism. A Socialist to the backbone, thoroughly class-conscious and dowered with an incisive intellect, Gabriel thrilled at thought that he, by chance, had been chosen as the instrument through which he felt the final revolution now must work. And though he remained outwardly calm, as he bent above his toil, inwardly he was aflame. His heart throbbed with an excitement he could scarce control. His brain seemed on fire; his soul pulsed with savage joy and magnificent inspiration. For he was only four-and-twenty, and the bitter grind of years and toil had not yet worn his spirit down nor quelled the ardor of his splendid strength and optimism.
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