"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: