"Hydrochlorine, with the accent on the hydro, might possibly serve Your Majesty," said Rathenau, after thinking hard for a few seconds.
"Very well, write it down," ordered the War Lord. "Besides Krupp, who can furnish this chemical?"
"The Ruhr Chemical Works and the Ludwigshafen Aniline Factory might."
Rathenau was dismissed with scant thanks, and Krupp was readmitted to listen to the substance of Wilhelm's conference with the President of the A.E.G., the latter's philanthropic objections being carefully marked as the War Lord's own, while the diluting advised was dismissed as namby-pamby.
Krupp, after listening respectfully, said: "May it please Your Majesty, I have had a little experience with asphyxiating gas. We used it to destroy a number of consumptive cows, thinking it the more humane method. They were to be benumbed before slaughter.
"God forbid that Bertha, who is very much attached to the animals on the estate, ever learns what really did happen. As for myself, I had an inkling, but where experience is to be gained charity must take a back seat."
"Well said," commented the War Lord. "Go on!"
"We tethered the cattle in an enclosure, their heads over a furrow from which the poison gas was rising. It had a sharp, bitter smell, and as it caught the animals' throat they gasped and choked. Some attempted to breathe deeply and could not, and all went giddy, it seemed, but did not lose consciousness.
"The chief vet. had predicted that the intense irritation of the bronchial mucous membrane would fill the tubes with a fluid which the animals could not expel, and this is what did happen.
"We let them suffer for experience's sake, then gave them salted water. This cleared their lungs and forestalled complete suffocation."