For a moment he stood thinking,
while Herzog eyed him with trepidation, and Waldron, almost forgetting
to smoke, waited developments with interest. The Billionaire, however,
wasted but scant time in consideration. It was not money now, he lusted
for, but power. Money was, to him, no longer any great desideratum. At
most, it could now mean no more to him than a figure on a check-book or
a page of statistics in his private memoranda. But power, unlimited,
indisputable power over the whole earth and the fulness thereof, power
which none might dispute, power before which all humanity must bow--God!
the lust of it now gripped and shook his soul.
Paling a little, but with eyes ablaze, he faced the anxious scientist.
"Herzog! See here!"
"Yes, sir?"
"I've got a job for you, understand?"
"Yes, sir. What is it?"
"A big job, and one on which your entire future depends. Put it through,
and I'll do well by you. Fail, and by the Eternal, I'll break you! I
can, and will, mark that! Do you get me?"
"I--yes, sir--that is, I'll do my best, and--"
"Listen! You go to work at once, immediately, understand? Work out for
me some process, some practicable method by which the nitrogen and
oxygen can both be collected in large quantities from the air.
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