Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/369

Rh "Unfortunately we have no work for a chemist," he finally said as a regretful ultimatum.

"I beg your pardon for having disturbed you," I half whispered and rose to go out, when the manager stopped me with the words:

"Please wait a moment. I shall return at once."

Almost immediately he did come back with a second gentleman, who turned out to be the owner of the factory.

"My chief wants to make a proposal to you for a piece of work to be undertaken at your own risk. Do you understand?"

"What is it?" I asked with something between enthusiasm and despair.

"A firm, which is competing with ours, makes cigarette tubes with a cotton insert that absorbs the nicotine. How they prepare this cotton is their secret. If you could develop something similar, we should at once pay you five hundred roubles and should give you one thousand roubles annually for a period of ten years. What do you think? But I repeat once more that all the laboratory expenses are for your account, whether you succeed or not."

After finishing his sentence, the manager looked at me with questioning eyes and wondered evidently whether I had any experience to go on. I realized at once what cotton was needed for absorbing the poisonous alkaloid of nicotine and already saw myself completing the experiment and earning food.

"I have every reason to believe the work will be successful," was my verbal answer; whereas my actions hardly supported my declaration, as I suddenly felt an irresistible dizziness coming over me and fell, almost fainting, into the chair behind me.