i
"charles," said john rawn one evening, with that directness of habit which perhaps we have earlier noted, "i have been thinking over some scientific problems."
"yes?" replied halsey. "what is it—a patent car coupler? there isn't a fellow in our office who hasn't patented one, but i didn't know it was quite so catching as to get into the personal injury department—they only settle with the widows there."
"in my belief," went on rawn, frowning at this flippancy, "i am upon the eve of a great success, charles."
"what sort of success, mr. rawn?" inquired halsey, more soberly.
rawn smiled largely. "you will hardly credit me when i tell you, almost all sorts of success! to make it short, i have formed a power company—a concern for the cheap generation and general transmission of power. in the course of a few months we'll proceed in the manufacture of electrical transmitters and receivers for what i call the lost current of electricity."
halsey stood cold for a moment, and looked at him in amazement.
"you don't mean to say—why, that's precisely what i've been thinking of for so long."
"i don't doubt many have been thinking of it," rejoined rawn. "it had to come. these things seem to happen in cycles. it's almost a toss-up what man will first perfect an invention when once it gets in the air, so to speak. now, this invention of mine has been due ever since the developments in wireless transmission. in truth, i may say that i have only gone a little beyond the wireless idea. what i have done is to separate the two currents of electricity."
halsey leaned against the wall. "my god!" he half whispered. he smiled foolishly.
"why, mr. rawn," he said finally, "i've been studying that, i don't know how long—ever since the researches in my university were made public. i thought for some time i might be able to figure it out further than our professors have as yet. pflüger, of bonn, in germany, has been working for years and years on that theory of perpetual motion in all molecules."
"mollycules? i don't know as i ever really saw any," hesitated rawn.
"very likely, mr. rawn!"
"i've never cared much for mere scientific rot," said rawn, coloring a trifle. "that gets us nothing. but what were you saying?"
halsey's enthusiasm carried him beyond resentment and amusement alike.
"molecules are everywhere, in everything, mr. rawn," he explained gently; "and now we know they move, though we can see them only in mass and as though motionless."
"i don't see how that can be," began rawn; but checked himself.
halsey smote his hand against the solid wall. "it moves!" he exclaimed. "it's alive! it vibrates—every solid is in perpetual motion. the dance of the molecules is endless. it's in the air around us, above us—power, power—immeasurable, irresistible power, exhaustless, costless power! all you have to do is to jar it out of balance."
"yes, i know. that's what i've been getting at, precisely—"
"i was going to figure it out sometime," said halsey ruefully.
"i did figure it out!" said john rawn sententiously. "moreover, i've got the company formed."
ii
"you—mr. rawn? how did you manage that? i didn't know that you—" halsey at last spoke.
"a great many haven't known about a great many things," said rawn, walking up and down, his hands in his pockets, his air gloomily dignified. "a few men always have to do the things which others don't know about. for instance, what did all the work of your professors—what-d'ye-call-'ems—amount to? nothing at all. maybe they'd print a paper about it. that would about end it, just as it ended it for you. you admit you got the idea from them; but i say it wasn't any idea at all. i saw it—in the papers. didn't pay much attention to it, because there's nothing in this scientific business for practical men like me."
"i know, i know," halsey nodded. "that's true. here it all is." he took from his coat pocket a creased and folded newspaper page of recent date. "here's the story—i was proud, because it was my own university did the work:
"'that the molecules composing all material substances are constantly in rapid motion, ricocheting against one another in the manner of a collection of billiard-balls suddenly stirred up, the speed of the air's components being about half that of a cannon ball, was the proof announced to-day from the university of chicago as a further development of the experiments by professor r. a. threlkeld, which for the last year have been attracting the attention of scientists from all parts of the world. the absolute nature of the proof, upon which physicists all over the world have been working without result for several years, was assented to by professor pflüger, of bonn university, germany, who arrived in chicago last monday to witness the demonstration.'"
he paused in his literal reading from the printed page. "i told you about pflüger," he began.
"yes, some dutchman," assented rawn graciously. "they're great to dig."
halsey, being in the presence of the man whom he proposed making his father-in-law, was perforce polite, although indignant. he went on icily, with his reading, since he had begun it:
"'the belief that the molecules of which all matter is composed are in a perpetual dance of motion has been held tentatively by scientists for several years, but, owing to the general inability to make any progress in proving it, considerable skepticism has developed among the physicists of several of the leading scientific nations. it was generally known as the kinetic theory. professor threlkeld's proof is a further development of his experiments, showing electricity to be a definite substance, which were announced last year and were pronounced the most important discovery concerning the nature of electricity since benjamin franklin.
"'the simple expedient of performing his experiments in almost a complete vacuum—a method which had not occurred to scientists before—was given by professor threlkeld as the foundation stone of his discovery. minute drops of oil, sprayed into a vacuum chamber, one side of which is of glass, demonstrate by their own motions the truth of the theory.
"'surrounded by the ordinary amount of air, the oil drops are bombarded by moving air molecules in so many thousand places at once that their motion is so rapid as to be invisible. with few molecules of air surrounding them, the drops are driven back and forth as though being used as a punching-bag.
"'by reference to his previous experiments with drops of oil bombarded by electrical ions, the motion of the oil drops has been found to be precisely the same, showing the cause of the motion to be similar in both cases.'"
"that's all right," said john rawn, "all very well as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough."
iii
halsey smiled. "well, here's what the discoverer says about it," he commented. "i reckon that's plain, too, as far as it goes:
"'for the benefit of the general public, professor threlkeld has prepared the following statement concerning the experiments he has been conducting:
"'"the method consisted in catching atmospheric ions upon minute oil drops floating in the air and measuring the electrical charge which the drops thus acquired. this year the following extensions of this work have been made:
"'"the action of ionization itself is now being studied, each of the two electrical fragments into which a neutral molecule breaks up being caught upon oil drops at the instant of formation. this study has shown that the act of ionization of a neutral air molecule always consists in the detachment from it of one single elementary charge rather than of two or three such charges.
"'"by suspending these minute oil drops in rarefied gases instead of in air at atmospheric pressure, the authors have been able to make the oil drops partake of the motions of agitation of the molecules to such an extent that they can be seen by any observer to dance violently under the bombardment which they receive from the flying air molecules.
"'"by measuring accurately the amount of the motion of agitation of the oil drops and comparing it with the motions which they assume under the influence of an electrical field because of the charge which they carry, the authors have been able to make an exact and certain identification, with the aid of computations made by mr. fletcher, of the electrical charge carried by an atmospheric ion (and measured in their preceding work), with the electrical charge carried by univalent ions in solution.
"'"this work not only supplies complete proof of the correctness of the atomic theory of electricity, but gives a much more satisfactory demonstration than had before been found of the perpetual dance of the molecules of matter."'"*
*with but a change of name, mr. halsey quoted literally from the journal—the author.
iv
"fine! fine! charley!" interrupted rawn sardonically. "everybody's read that who cared to read it. it's too dry for most folks. it's public; it's wide open, no secret about it. but who wants it? what use has a mollycule and a drop of oil in a glass jar got in actual business? what ice does it cut?"
"i know—i know, mr. rawn; very little indeed. but, one idea grows out of another. now, what i was experimenting with was this same second current of electricity—whatever it is. it's got something to do—i don't just know what—with this same movement of the molecules. now, can't you see, something has got to move them. if you've got perpetual motion, you've got a perpetual power somewhere back at it, and a power that is endless, universal—
"mr. rawn," he resumed earnestly, "when i got that far along, i got to—well—sort of dreaming! i followed that dance of the atoms on out—into the universe—into the manifestation of—"
"well, of what?"
"of god! of providence! of something, whatever it is that begins and perpetuates; something that plans! something that created. something that intends life and comfort and joy for the things it created."
v
rawn eyed him coldly. "charley," said he, "you're talking tommyrot! you can't run this world into the spiritual world. that's wrong. it's irreligious. besides, it's rot."
halsey hardly heard him. "so then i began to wonder what we'd find yet, when we had that vast, universal power all for our own—all for man, you know, mr. rawn. living's hard to-day, mr. rawn. there's a lot of injustice in the world nowadays. so—well, i wondered if it weren't nearly time that things should change. we've always moved on up—or thought we did, anyhow—so why shouldn't we keep on moving, keep on making discoveries?"
"that's what i thought, charley!"
—"something that would lighten the world's labor, and give the world more time to think, more time to grow—to enjoy—well, to love, you know—"
"charley, you're nothing better than a damned socialist! you're siding with the lower classes. labor!—there's always got to be labor, long as the world lasts—always has been and always will be. and some do that sort of work, while others don't. there are differences among men. look at those professors—look at you! a mollycule in a glass jar—what'd it get you? did any of you form a company for the perpetual sale of something that's everlasting and that don't cost anything? you didn't. but i did."
"yes. and it was my dream—but not as you state it, mr. rawn. i didn't want to sell it. i wanted to give it. i wanted to do something for the people, for humanity—for the country—you see. that is—"
"humanity be damned!" broke in john rawn brutally. "you can't do anything for humanity—you can't make the weak men strong—it's god a'mighty does that, charley. give it away, eh? well, let me have the second current that costs nothing, and let me sell it for ever at my own price—and i reckon i'll let you and your professor and mr. dutchman, whatever his name is, trail along any way you like with your mollycule in the glass jar. i want canned power—definite, marketable, something you can wrap up in a package and sell, do you understand—sell to those same laboring men that you're wasting your sympathy on. work for yourself, my son, remember that; never mind about humanity. and i'll give you a chance, charley—in my company," he added.
vi
"is it a big company?" queried halsey wearily.
"twenty-five million dollars," answered john rawn calmly. and it is to be remembered that at this time john rawn was drawing a salary of one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month, the highest pay he had ever received in all his life; also that he was at this time a man forty-seven years of age. we have classes in america, but occasionally the lines that separate one from the other prove susceptible of successful attack at the hands of a determined man. as rawn stood before halsey, who only goggled and gasped at such statements as his last, he seemed a determined man.
"we are going to dam the mississippi river, a couple of hundred miles above here at the ledges," rawn remarked casually. "for the time, that will be our central power plant. we will contract for a million and a half dollars' worth of power each year in st. louis alone. that comes down by regular wire transmission. that is nothing, it's only a drop in the bucket. our big killing is going to be with the other scheme—the second current—the same idea you've been trifling with. we'll go east with that."
"you seem to mean almost what i mean, when i talked with you long ago—"
"do you think so?" rawn's tone was affable and he held out his hand. "i should be happy indeed to think that we had been studying along the same lines, charles. that will enable you all the better to understand my own ideas and my business plans. of course—and i'll be frank with you, charles—mrs. rawn and i have doubted the wisdom of grace's engagement to a young man without means or prospects. but i can give you prospects, and you can make your own means. i'll put you in our central factory. we need good men, of course, and i need you especially, charles. in fact, i've had you in my eye."
"how do you mean?"
"well, i shall be president of the concern."
halsey smiled sardonically. "the difference between men!"
"pardon me, but you seem to think that you ought to stand in my shoes in this matter, charles. i don't recall any warrant for that." rawn spoke with asperity, aggrieved. "of course, we speak loosely of certain things, all of us, and all of us have unformed wishes, all that sort of thing. i'm willing to admit, too, as i said before, that when the time comes for a great idea to be discovered, it may be almost by accident that it is discovered by this man or that.
"but now, as i take it, charles," he continued, "you never had any definite and exact idea of handling the unattuned current of electricity which runs free in the air, and which—according to my theory—can be taken down by the proper receivers and used locally—harnessed, set to work; and retailed at a price. that's the wireless idea, of course, in one form. it's the one big thing left for big business to discover. there's nothing left in timber, mines, irrigation, railroads; cream's all off the country now. but now here comes this idea of mine, and it's bigger than any of those old ones. money?" he threw out his hands. "were you working on this yourself, my son?" he concluded. "how singular! but it's in the air."
"not very much," said halsey honestly. "i didn't have time to work steadily at it. we're pretty busy in the office. i did make a little model, though. i spent quite a lot of time on it, as i could."
"we are busy in our office, too," said rawn grimly. "but i found time. we'll look over your model together, some day."
