West High School - Occident Yearbook (Columbus, OH)

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26 THE OCCIDEN T willing to accept the result as a me- menco-you blessed Missourian! Mean- while, I want you to lunch with me. I'm expecting Janvrin any minute with big supplies. We let it go at that. I gave him back the bar of metal, which he care- lessly tossed onto the shelf. While he Iousied himself about the place, I cast a glance around the room. It certainly had a business-like appearance. The electric furnace was clearly of special design. The four highly polished lamps about it resembled the apparatus used to generate Finsen light in the hospi- tals. I tried to recall what I had heard as to the effect of ultra-violet rays. But it appeared that it was not a question of rays. Those lamps must give off powerful rays, I said. Certainly, Rollins replied. But what matters is a thing very much like Beta radiations. How I get it electric- ally is my secret. So is the exact mix- ture I put in the furnace. I don't mind telling you, however, that I put nothing into it that cost over a dollar a pound. And I get quite a lot of it out as gold. But what are you going to do with it? I asked. Sell it, of course. I'm going to build a factory as soon as I've perfected the apparatus, and I'll train a bunch of these natives to help. I don't trust Whites. They're too intelligent and in- quisitive. No patents, either. I'm go- ing to put it over right here in this clearing. And I'm going to be rich. And right away, too-no long drawn out agony of waiting. I don't blame you, I said, thinking of my own meager income as professor of biology, and mentally comparing it with that of the maker of gold. But you'll have to be mighty careful, you know. To hide the source of all my wealth, you mean? Yes, I've puzzled a good deal over that question. It would be like the end of the world if it got out that someone was making gold in a lab- oratory. Gold would lose its commer- cial value. You follow me? Then the people would sit and gape and wonder what was going to happen. But, oh my! When they woke up! There would be special legislation. The big industries would start to investigate and they would make it pretty Warm for me, eh? Illifit manufacture, prosecution, finally Jal 1-ar He shrugged his shoulders humor- ously. Ferhap worse, he continued. How do I know but what the money trusts would discreetly have me found dead? I'm not saying it wouldn't be in self defense. I thot of this idea in amazed silence. But I'm safe, went on Rollins, as long as I don't publish the process. N 0- body will believe that I make the stuff on the premises. Even now you don't believe it yourself. I'm trying hard enuf,', I apologized. N ever mind. I can get rich without damaging your poor little gold standard perceptibly. I Judge money only by the need of it. I've got my plans. There's a woman in them some- where, I ventured. He stood up and stretched himself and his magnificent bulk made the room seem small in comparison. What do you think of that? You know what I was at college-poor and weak. Well, these last two years have put me in the running. .Happy be the man with a sound pair of bellows. I'll be going back North soon and claim what I've been cheated out of, so far. She sure is a peach, too. I murmured sympathy. He certainly was a different man from the one who had graduated in my class at college. And I even began to waver in my con- victions about his experiments. I had heard enuf about transmutation by ra- dium emanations to know that his proc- ess was theoretically possible. It was sunset and the sudden tropical nightfall had come like the dropping of a curtain, when we heard a sound in the clearing. That's Janvrin, splashing thru the mud in his buggy, he said. Gee, but it's fine to talk to a human being who can understand. I've had some of that news bottled up for about two years, and it sure is a relief to get it out of my system. The colored man appeared in the doorway with both arms full of canned

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THE. OCCIDENT 25 here for two years, and I've got more than just looks. It was an inspiration in the college lab that made me make up my mind to go on living. I thot this was the best place to pull off my little stunt. What do you think of this joker? He stretched a long arm to a shelf above his head, and tossed over a small bright object that fell into my hand with astonishing weight for its bulk. It proved to be a tiny ingot of yellow metal. I weighed it wonderingly in my palm. It might be gold, I said. There's nothing else just that weight and color. He grinned. Remarkably like gold, isn't it? Take the acids and test it for yourself. There are the balances on the floor behind you. You know enuf to get the specific gravity. Cut it up, beat it out to a tissue, anything you please. Then ask yourself, if it isn't gold, what in the name of miracles it is. Wait a minute and I'll show you what Uncle Sam has to say about it. He reached for a small valise near the camp bed, and presently handed me a sealed document. It was a certificate of the United States Assay Office to the effect that certain ingots, nuggets, and metallic dust submitted to its experts by Harry Rollins, of Cedar Lake, Flor- ida, were found to consist of pure gold, with only the slightest traces of copper and barium. Fancy finding gold in Florida! I exclaimed. Why, the place is nothing but a burning sandpit except where it's swamps. I didn't find it, answered Rollins, quietly. I made it. He stood there grinning in utter sat- isfaction at the finished exposition of gaping incredulity that I doubtless gave him. Oh, I'm quite Well, he said. You shall watch me make some more before you begin to question my sanity. In fact I never felt better in my life. This clearing's pretty good for a consump- tive. It's larger than I wanted it, but I just keep on yanking stumps from the pure joy of living. But to say that you make gold- I began. Rollins only laughed and waved aside all argument with a sweep of his hand. You shall see. And then you'll cease to wonder why I came out into this wilderness. Of course at first-it was horrible. I'm all alone except when a colored man brings my supplies from the settlement, about once a week. As it happens, you're the first white man I've seen in six weeks. I held out the bar of gold toward him, but he waved it away contemptu- ously. Keep it. There's plenty more where I got that. Have it made into a brace- let for some girl, or hang it on your watch chain. Artificial gold! It'll have a certain historic value some day, he said whimsically. You could lend it to the Museum of Natural Science, for instance. 'Kindly lent by Professor Theodore Carney,' eh? Ready made im- portance for you. But, I can't take it, you know, I protested. The thing must be worth a couple of hundred dollars-if it is gold. Bet your life it is, he replied laugh- ing. Better than a certified check. But, if it were the last thing I had in the world, I'd have given it to see a friendly face. Of course there's my man, Janvrin, but, as I said, he comes only once a week. The rest of the time I'm alone with poor Buster here. He went again to the corner by the bed, and for the first time, I noticed a dog lying on a bed of grass. Rollins patted the dog's head affectionately, but it did not stir in response. Poor old pal. he's got distemper, hasn't he? said Rollins with a note of tenderness in his voice. I've tied him up so he won't forget himself and run out into the sun. He's only a yellow pup, but at that he can guard gold better than most human beings. And he believes in me. Don't you, old boy ? The creature's tail quivered in reply. I reverted to the subject of the ingot. Of course, I said, if I were sure that you could make some more when- ever you pleased- Hang it, man, haven't I said so? But-I'm going to make some more to- night and I'll let you turn on the cur- rent. Then perhaps you'll be more

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THE OCCIDENT 27 goods. He started on seeing me and dropped a number of them. Ma goodness, but you skeered me l he said and laughed nervously. Rollins got up and lit the lamp. Janvrin is always a bit leery about coming near the apparatus, he ex- plained. At first he wouldn't come near until he had half filled his shoes with salt and pepper, so that I couldn't put the hokus-pokus on him. He thinks I'm a pretty respectable sort of hoodoo man now. We went outside and smoked while the negro cleaned up and prepared sup- per. The grove was bathed in a dark purple and a musical breeze rustled thru the trees and seemed to be whispering of the many things it had passed dur- ing the day. Probably it was the dreaminess of the night which caused Rollins to reopen the subject of the girl up North. It was one look she gave me, he remarked, that fixed itself in my mem- ory more than anything else about her. I had a fit of coughing and I looked up suddenly after the paroxysm was over to find her standing there. You can't :imagine the pity that was in those eyes. ,And I think there was something else. But that was not for a penniless lunger like me. Now! Why man, I feel younger and better than I did when I was going to college. And I've got -plenty of money, with the means to make more. And I don't look as if I 'needed a doctor, do I? My! What a -difference. I thrust my hand out impulsively. Good luck, old man. I said. And I'll offer my congratulations in ad- Vance. He clasped my hand warmly and said, The man who can win the love of a girl like Hilda Templeton is luckier than the man who can make gold. It was the first time that he had men- tioned her name and as he did so, I remembered her. She was one of those girls who are different. Golden-brown hair and blue eyes, not very tall but just full of lifeg never a hard word for anybody, always a smile. And when she smiled you just felt glad and you'd think that the world might be fit to live in after all. We sat and ate in silence and after the meal the man Janvrin went out to the shed and I soon heard the nervous put-put of a gasoline engine followed by the steady whir of a dynamo. For the next ten minutes Rollins and the colored man were busy mixing up some substances from the array of bottles that lined the shelf. I took up my sta- tion near the switch on the wall to turn he had suggested. at intervals about on the current as Rollins still talked ions and atoms and what he considered a proven fact, that all substances were composed of the same base, only differ- ing in their complex arrangement of particles. I listened without in the least com- prehending what he was talking about, when the idiotic idea came into my head that if I turned on the current I should kill Rollins. He stepped away from the furnace and the negro scampered over near the door. Let her go, said Rollins, and I pushed up on the big switch. There was an instant sputtering in the fur- nace and the metals in the track of the arc became white hot, melted, and finally started to vaporize. Rollins then turned the four big lamps on the furnace and they began their fierce bombardment of Beta emanations. I remarked a queer pattering on the floor that sounded like rain. Only spiders and things, said Rol- lins. We sweep up a handful of them every time we turn on this laboratory chafing dish. The metals in the furnace fumed and sputtered and a strange, intense green light filled the cabin. Just changing the pattern, chuckled Rollins. We're the first to see it done since the atoms were swept together and made into a world. He came toward me and turned off the current. The greenish glare died rapidly and we were again in the dim lamplight, waiting for our eyes to get used to the change. The metal in the furnace now gleamed with the yellow luster of pure gold. Fo' de land sake, gasped the col- ored man near the door, what am de matter wid dat dawg? Rollins uttered a sharp exclamation.