“What of it, chief?” Mr. Cooper interposed. “That wouldn’t hurt anything.” The president considered. “No, I don’t suppose it would,” he admitted. “It’s an interesting idea, especially if it would work. Have you talked with any of our technical men? How about Merkle, seen him?” “He has been—” Jimmy hesitated; then meeting Mr. Cooper’s warning glance, went on: “Yes, sir; he’s been studying it. He says it can be done; he knows just how to do it.” “Oh, he does?” “Yes, sir. He’s outside now; we thought you might like to talk to him about it.” “We’ll have him in at once.” The president reached for the button on his desk, but Jimmy stopped him. “Just a minute, Mr. Wentworth—before you get Merkle. There’s another point I wanted to make.” Jimmy still had his trump card, and he thought this a good time to play it. “We understand around the office that this new factory you’re planning is for the making of optical glass?” The president inclined his head. “And for optical glass you need a very good grade of sand; if it has less than one-twentieth of one per cent of iron, and not more than that of other impurities, it is satisfactory?” Jimmy was quoting almost verbatim what he had carefully learned. Mr. Wentworth nodded again; his growing surprise and admiration for Jimmy were evident from his expression. “Well, sir, when I found that out, I thought of a sand-bank that’s on mother’s farm. It’s all sandy; that’s why it’s no good for a farm.” Jimmy took a little bottle from his pocket and laid it on the desk before the president. “There’s some of the sand, Mr. Wentworth, I had it analyzed.” He produced a folded sheet of paper. “Here’s the analysis—over ninety-nine and nine-tenths per cent pure silica.” He handed the paper to Mr. Wentworth. “That’s mighty important, chief, as you know,” said Mr. Cooper earnestly. “If you’ve got the fuel and the sand, that’s pretty near everything, isn’t it?” The president glanced at the paper and the little bottle of sand lying on his desk; then he sat up briskly. “We’ll have Merkle in here at once; see what he says. You’re certainly interesting—mighty interesting. If it works—if it works—” “It’ll work, chief,” said Mr. Cooper confidently, as the president rang his buzzer to summon Isaac Merkle. The conference with Mr. Merkle lasted over an hour. The little chemist, forgetting the unsavory circumstances under which he had been induced to begin work on Jimmy’s plan, plunged into a discussion of it with enthusiasm. His ideas, as he outlined them now to Mr. Wentworth, did not differ in any large essential from the way in which Jimmy had explained how it should be done. Mr. Merkle was sure that coal burning under control in the ground could be made to yield gas of a very satisfactory quality. In his opinion the main furnaces that had already been decided upon for the new optical glass factory could be used, unchanged.