“That’s tremendously interesting,” Bondy broke in. “I was always weak in physics, you know. But you’re not looking well, Marek. By the way, how did you happen to come by this playth . . . this, er . . . factory?”

“I? Oh, quite by accident. I invented a new kind of filament for electric bulbs. . . . But that’s nothing; I only came upon it incidentally. You see, for twenty years I’ve been working on the combustion of matter. Tell me yourself, Bondy, what is the greatest problem of modern industry?”

“Doing business,” said Bondy. “And are you married yet?”

“I’m a widower,” answered Marek, leaping up excitedly. “No, business has nothing to do with it, I tell you. It’s combustion. The complete utilization of the heat-energy contained in matter! Just consider that we use hardly one hundred-thousandth of the heat that there is in coal, and that could be extracted from it! Do you realize that!”

“Yes, coal is terribly dear!” said Mr. Bondy sapiently.

Marek sat down and cried disgustedly, “Look here, if you haven’t come here about my Karburator, Bondy, you can go.”

“Go ahead, then,” Bondy returned, anxious to conciliate him.

Marek rested his head in his hands, and after a struggle came out with, “For twenty years I’ve been working on it, and now—now, I’ll sell it to the first man who comes along! My magnificent dream! The greatest invention of all the ages! Seriously, Bondy, I tell you, it’s something really amazing.”

“No doubt, in the present wretched state of affairs,” assented Bondy.

“No, without any qualification at all, amazing. Do you realize that it means the utilization of atomic energy without any residue whatever?”

“Aha,” said Bondy. “So we’re going to do our heating with atoms. Well, why not? . . . You’ve got a nice place here, Rudy. Small and pleasant. How many hands do you employ?”

Marek took no notice. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “it’s all the same thing, whatever you call it—the utilization of atomic energy, or the complete combustion of matter, or the disintegration of matter. You can call it what you please.”

“I’m in favour of ‘combustion’!” said Mr. Bondy. “It sounds more familiar.”

“But ‘disintegration’ is more exact—to break up the atoms into electrons, and harness the electrons and make them work. Do you understand that?”

“Perfectly,” Bondy assured him. “The point is to harness them!”

“Well, imagine, say, that there are two horses at the ends of a rope, pulling with all their might in opposite directions. Do you know what you have then?”

“Some kind of sport, I suppose,” suggested Mr. Bondy.

“No, a state of repose. The horses pull, but they stay where they are. And if you were to cut the rope——”

“—The horses would fall over,” cried G. H. Bondy, with a flash of inspiration.