Young Halsey, dull white, simply sat staring at him as he went on.
"We all know what the old ideas of fuel and power are—they're obsolete. Electricity is the power of the future, the power of to-day. Speed, speed, speed is what we want. Power, power, power is what every industry needs, as well as what every man craves.
"Now, heretofore, the only question has been to get electricity over the country, to distribute it cheaply. The water powers manufacture it well enough, but even water powers cost money; and there has always been a limit to the range of transmission. Now, when I set aside all these old, costly, inefficient methods, and hand, ready-made, to the great capitalists of this country the very answer to the last question they have been asking, what is going to be the natural result? When I tell them that I can wipe out all this enormous industrial waste that has been going on in power, what are they going to say to me? Are they going to kick me out of their offices?
"They didn't kick me out. When I went to them—a few of them, men who run our road—and told them that I could separate electricity into two parts, two sorts, common and preferred, old and new, costly and cheap, localized and wholly mobile—what were they going to say to me? They didn't kick me out of the office! They got up and locked the office door. That's what they did. They were afraid I'd get away from them!
"They had thought of these things before—about as much as you have, I reckon. That is, they had hoped something would be discovered some time, by somebody. But I told them that I could send one-half of this divided power up into the air, now! I said I could store it in the air without cost to any one, and then take it down, at any manufacturing plant, anywhere, any lighting plant, any enterprise using power, whenever and wherever I pleased, at a cost not worth mentioning—and now! It was then they locked the office door, for fear I'd get away."
IV
"It's wonderful," said Halsey, warmly as he could.
"I told them that, as certainly as anything is certain, I could take that stored charge out of the air, and set it at work in Chicago, or Cleveland, or Pittsburgh, or Minneapolis, or where I liked. I said I could put in the scrap heap every factory run under the old and obsolete power methods. Then they began to sit up. I had 'em pale before I got through! I tell you, Charles, I saw the president of this railroad we have been working for look pale and sick when I, I, John Rawn, one of his underpaid clerks—a man who had had enough trouble to get to see him—who had to make some excuse to get to see him—stood up right to his face and proved these things."
Halsey, duller white, listened on as Rawn talked on.
"Of course, they didn't believe it—he called in his crony, the general traffic manager—that beast Ackerman—you see, they have some side lines of investment together, on their personal account—and it makes 'em a lot more than their salaries. But they were afraid not to believe what I said. They tried to talk and couldn't. About all they could say to me at the end of an hour or so was 'How much?'