"No matter," Flint waived him, promptly. "I don't care for formulas or
details. What I want is results and general principles. Any other way to
extract these substances, in commercial quantities, from the air we
breathe?"

"Two others. But one of these operates at a prohibitive cost. The
other--"

"Yes, yes. What is it?" Flint slid off the edge of the table and walked
over to Herzog; stood there in front of him, and bored down at him with
eager eyes, the pupils contracted by morphine, but very bright. "What's
the best way?"

"With the electric arc, sir," answered the chemist, mopping his brow.
This grilling method reminded him of what he had heard of "Third Degree"
torments. "That's the best method, sir."

"Now in use, anywhere?"

"In Notodden, Norway. They have firebrick furnaces, you understand, sir,
with an alternating current of 5000 volts between water-cooled copper
electrodes. The resulting arc is spread by powerful electro-magnets,
so." And he illustrated with his eight acid-stained fingers. "Spread
out like a disk or sphere of flame, of electric fire, you see."

"Yes, and what then?" demanded Flint, while his partner, forgetting now
to smile, sat there by the window scrutinizing him. One saw, now, the
terribly keen and prehensile intellect at work under the mask of assumed
foppishness and jesting indifference--the quality, for the most part
masked, which had earned Waldron the nickname of "Tiger" in Wall Street.