[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

"Well, let's eat dinner first"
After the mid-day meal, they began. The apparatus was set up in feverish haste. In a cubic
vat, a foot each way, a sat- urated solution of Ammonaline was poured. An old, battered
spoon was the cathode and a mass of ammonium amalgam (separated from the rest of the
solution by a perforated glass partition) was the anode. Three batteries in series provided
the current.
Sills explained animatedly, "It works on the same principle as ordinary copper plating. The
ammonium ion, once the electric current is run through, is attracted to the cathode, which-is
in the spoon. Ordinarily it would break up, being un- stable, but this is not the case when it is
dissolved in Am- monaline. This Ammonaline is itself very slightly ionized and oxygen is
given off at the anode.
"This much I know from theory. Let us see what happens in practice."
He closed the key while Taylor watched with breathless interest. For a moment, no effect
was visible. Taylor looked disappointed.
Then Sills grasped his sleeve. "See!" he hissed. "Watch the anode!"
Sure enough, bubbles of gas were slowly forming upon the spongy ammonium amalgam.
They shifted their attention to the spoon.
Gradually, they noticed a change. The metallic appearance became dulled, the silver color
slowly losing its whiteness. A layer of distinct, if dull, yellow was being built up. For fifteen
minutes, the current ran and then Sills broke the circuit with
a contented sigh.
"It plates perfectly," he said.
"Good! Take it out! Let's see it!"
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"What?" Sills was aghast. 'Take it out! Why, that's pure ammonium. If I were to expose it to
ordinary air, the water vapor would dissolve it to NBLOH in no time. We can't do that."
He dragged a rather bulky piece of apparatus to the table.
"This," he said, "is a compressed-air container. I run it through calcium chloride dryers and
then bubble the per- fectly dry oxygen (safely diluted with four times its own volume of
nitrogen) directly into the solvent."
He introduced the nozzle into the solution just beneath the spoon and turned on a slow
stream of air. It worked like magic. With almost lightning speed, the yellow coating began to
glitter and gleam, to shine with almost ethereal beauty.
The two men watched it with beating heart and panting breath. Sills shut the air off, and for a
while they watched the wonderful spoon and said nothing.
Then Taylor whispered hoarsely, "Take it out. Let me feel
it! My God! it's beautiful!"
With reverent awe, Sills approached the spoon, grasped it with forceps, and withdrew it
from the surrounding liquid.
What followed immediately after that can never be fully described. Later on, when excited
newspaper reporters pressed them unmercifully, neither Taylor nor Sills had the least re-
collection of the happenings of the next few minutes.
What happened was that the moment the ammonium- plated spoon was exposed to open
air, the most horrible odor ever conceived assailed their nostrils! an odor that cannot be
described, a terrible broth of Hell that plunged the room into sheer, horrible nightmare.
With one strangled gasp. Sills dropped the spoon. Both were coughing and retching,
tearing wildly at their throats and mouths, yelling, weeping, sneezing!
Taylor pounced upon the spoon and looked about wildly. The odor grew steadily more
powerful and their wild exer- tions to escape it had already succeeded in wrecking the
laboratory and had upset the vat of Ammonaline. There was only one thing to do, and Sills
did it. The spoon went flying out the open window in the middle of Twelfth Avenue. It hit the
sidewalk right at the feet of one of the policemen, but Taylor didn't care.
"Take off your clothes. We'll have to burn them," Sills was gasping. "Then spray something
over the laboratory any- thing with a strong smell. Burn sulphur. Get some liquid Bromine."
Both were tearing at their clothes in distraction when they realized that someone had
walked in through the unlocked door. The bell had rung, but neither had heard it. It was
Staples, six-foot, lion-maned Steel King.
One step into the hall ruined his dignity utterly. He col- lapsed in one tearing sob and Twelfth
Avenue was treated to the spectacle of an elderly, richly-dressed gentleman tearing uptown
as fast as his feet would carry him, shedding as much of his clothes as he dared while doing
so.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]