Page:Amazing Stories Volume 01 Number 03.djvu/48

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ARDON me."

Mr. Hiram Snodgrass did not look up from his desk. It was Saturday and nearly noon and the automobile was panting outside to take him out to the country club where he had a golf game on with his son-in-law.

"Pardon me."

The president of the Ajax Manufacturing Company only dipped his pen again in the violet ink and scribbled the faster. A half hundred letters still remained to be signed and Mr. Snodgrass figured that even with the simplest of luncheons he would be an hour late upon the green. And this afternoon he purposed having his revenge, for the Saturday before the husband of his offspring had stung him to the tune of eight up.

"Pardon me."

Mr. Snodgrass swung in his chair. "Well, what is it?" The inquiry came explosively and with a fierce, sudden beat like the momentary opening of a furnace door. It was Mr. Snodgrass' way—a manner to which none in the office ever paid the slightest heed.

"You are Mr. Snodgrass?"

"Yes, I am," snapped that individual. "What of it?"

The stranger, a man with mild blue eyes and vague, rambling whiskers, seated himself. "Did you ever," he began, "take first the blue and then the white of a common, ordinary Seidlitz powder?"

Mr. Snodgrass threw his head back aghast at the query. "No, I have not," he bellowed.

The stranger was unperturbed. "Well, then try it," and drawing from his pocket one of the powders in question walked coolly over to the water filter and filling the glass dropped in the blue powder which he stirred with a long, index finger. "The result will surprise you."

"I'll do nothing of the dashed kind," roared Mr. Snodgrass. "And say," he demanded, as he caught the stenographer tittering behind her note book, "who the devil are you and how did you get in here?"

For answer the stranger laid upon the president's desk a card.

Mr. Snodgrass' features experienced a sudden transformation: the belligerent expression faded away and a smile of genuine pleasure suffused all of the countenance visible above and in front of the mutton-chop whiskers. "My dear Mr. Fosdick, I am delighted to meet you!" he ejaculated. "I suppose you dropped in to see how the nut-crackers are getting along. The device was an utter failure as a curling iron—but as a nut-cracker it has been an unqualified success. It is going to make you a rich man, Mr. Fosdick. Your royalties are now amounting to over a hundred dollars a week."

Mr. Fosdick shook his head. "No, I am not here on that account. I have a new invention that I want to interest you in."

"And the nature of it is what?" inquired Mr. Snodgrass.

"An automobile run by these," and the inventor held up a Seidlitz powder. "There is a wonderful lot of power in a Seidlitz powder, Mr. Snodgrass. Just take first the blue and then the white," he said, offering the glass and at the same time unfolding the white paper containing the other half of the powder.

Mr. Snodgrass drew back in some alarm. "No, I'll take your word for it."

"Please take it," insisted Mr. Fosdick. "It's a beautiful experiment. It gives a pressure of ten atmospheres—one hundred and fifty pounds."

"Damn it, man, I'm not built for a hundred and fifty pounds. I couldn't stand it—I'd blow up—I haven't any safety valve."

The inventor shook his head solemnly. "In that, Mr. Snodgrass, you are mistaken. The human diaphragm will stand one hundred and sixty pounds. You see, there is a margin of safety of ten pounds—the experiment is perfectly safe."

"I tell you I won't," cried Mr. Snodgrass, overcome by a sudden fear that he might be persuaded into such a rash adventure. "I won't, I tell you."

"Then I will," said Mr. Fosdick, calmly lifting the glass. "Just watch."

"Here, stop that!" cried the horrified Mr. Snodgrass. "Don't do that in here. Go down into the engine room where we have boiler insurance."

But the inventor was not to be thwarted. With cool deliberation he quaffed off first the one powder and then the other. "Right here," he said, after a minute's wait, "there is power enough to run my Seidlitzmobile eleven and two-tenths miles, if my calculations are not wrong," and he placed his hand upon the pit of his stomach. "Just feel the pressure."

Mr. Snodgrass extended his arm and gingerly prodded the compelling stranger under the ribs.

"Not hard," said the inventor warningly. "Remember, the margin of safety is only ten pounds."

Mr. Snodgrass withdrew his hand with lightning-like rapidity and the perspiration broke out upon his forehead. "Couldn't you go outside and sit around for awhile?" he inquired with some trepidation. "Our building is not very strong and an accident would doubtlessly maim many of our clerks."

"I usually don't stir," replied Mr. Fosdick solemnly. "If I should walk about and stumble—or if I should even cough or sneeze, why then"