“Possibly, some day, but it amounts to discovering the secret of life. To get even within speaking distance of that problem there would have to be long co-operation between botany and physiology and organic chemistry and radiochemistry. If you gave every cent of your wealth to a university to advance such co-operation, you would still be taking the longest way round.” “I’ll never do anything for a university. They ain’t practical.” “Mr. Ferry, that remark is the remark of a great man who on most subjects is an ignoramus.” “Trying to insult me?” “You know I’m not. I can’t look at you without liking you. I think you must give your employees some sort of doped drink to make them like you.” “Marvin, you’ve got the courage of your convictions, but you don’t know much about the real world. I tell you colleges ain’t practical.” “And I tell you, Mr. Ferry, that a research laboratory does the best work when it’s right in the heart of a university.” “Well, we’re getting off the track a little bit. The chemist who looked up your chemical record for me said you’d been wasting your time on lead.” “He’s welcome to his opinion.” “What interests you in lead?” “A good many things. One of them is the weight.” “Ain’t that known?” “Lead is averaged at 207.2, but it ranges as low as 206.” “What makes it vary?” “Different patterns in the nucleus of the atom. But radium steps down into lead evenly—226, 222, 218, 214, 210, 206, which means that it loses four points of mass at each step.” “What makes it do that?” “Because it releases two charges of positive electricity at each step.” “You mean to tell me that lead is full of electricity?” “I do. It is solid electricity, kept from explosion by the tension of its opposing charges.” “Can you prove it?” “Ask any physicist.” Asher studied the deck. “You mean to tell me that the lead in the paint on this floor conceals power?” “I do. And some day that power is going to be used in cylinders. Sooner or later we are going to make lead behave as radium does now. We are mining a million tons of it a year, and virtually wasting it. Your chemists may laugh as much as they please. I don’t expect any man but a man like yourself to entertain the idea.” “Marvin, I want to get this thing straight in my mind. Do I understand that the chemical elements can be lined up, one, two, three, four, five—like that—according to the amount of power in them?” “That is correct.” “Then I’d be guessing that the even numbers are the commonest elements.” “How do you get that?” “I don’t know. Things come to me like that sometimes.” “Well, I’d like to say that you are probably right, and that you never said a keener thing in your life. That is precisely the sort of right guess that gave us dynamos.” They looked at each other and glowed with friendship. “Marvin, don’t I owe you something?” “Nothing except to stop off and meet my father.”