The Air Trust | Page 4

of the desk till the big knuckles whitened. He seemed the
embodiment of harsh and unrelenting Power--power over men and
things, over their laws and institutions; power which, like Alexander's,
sought only new worlds to conquer; power which found all metes and
bounds too narrow.
"Power!" he whispered, as though to voice the inner inclining of the
picture. "Life, air, breath--the very breath of the world in my
hands--power absolutely, at last!"
CHAPTER II.
THE PARTNERS.
Then, as was his habit, translating ideas into immediate action, he
strode to a door at the far end of the office, flung it open and said:
"See here a minute, Wally!"
"Busy!" came an answering voice, from behind a huge roll-top desk.
"Of course! But drop it, drop it. I've got news for you."
"Urgent?" asked the voice, coldly.
"Very. Come in here, a minute. I've got to unload!"

From behind the big desk rose the figure of a man about five and forty,
sandy-haired, long-faced and sallow, with a pair of the coldest, fishiest
eyes--eyes set too close together--that ever looked out of a flat and ugly
face. A man precisely dressed, something of a fop, with just a note of
the "sport" in his get-up; a man to fear, a man cool, wary and
dangerous--Maxim Waldron, in fact, the Billionaire's right-hand man
and confidant. Waldron, for some time affianced to his eldest daughter.
Waldron the arch-corruptionist; Waldron, who never yet had been
"caught with the goods," but who had financed scores of industrial and
political campaigns, with Flint's money and his own; Waldron, the
smooth, the suave, the perilous.
"What now?" asked he, fixing his pale blue eyes on the Billionaire's
face.
"Come in here, and I'll tell you."
"Right!" And Waldron, brushing an invisible speck of dust from the
sleeve of his checked coat, strolled rather casually into the Billionaire's
office.
Flint closed the door.
"Well?" asked Waldron, with something of a drawl. "What's the
excitement?"
"See here," began the great financier, stimulated by the drug. "We've
been wasting our time, all these years, with our petty monopolies of
beef and coal and transportation and all such trifles!"
"So?" And Waldron drew from his pocket a gold cigar-case,
monogrammed with diamonds. "Trifles, eh?" He carefully chose a
perfecto. "Perhaps; but we've managed to rub along, eh? Well, if these
are trifles, what's on?"
"Air!"
"Air?" Waldron's match poised a moment, as with a slight widening of

the pale blue eyes he surveyed his partner. "Why--er--what do you
mean, Flint?"
"The Air Trust!"
"Eh?" And Waldron lighted his cigar.
"A monopoly of breathing privileges!"
"Ha! Ha!" Waldron's laugh was as mirthful as a grave-yard raven's
croak. "Nothing to it, old man. Forget it, and stick to--"
"Of course! I might have expected as much from you!" retorted the
Billionaire tartly. "You've got neither imagination nor--"
"Nor any fancy for wild-goose chases," said Waldron, easily, as he sat
down in the big leather chair. "Air? Hot air, Flint! No, no, it won't do!
Nothing to it nothing at all."
For a moment the Billionaire regarded him with a look of intense
irritation. His thin lips moved, as though to emit some caustic answer;
but he managed to keep silence. The two men looked at each other, a
long minute; then Flint began again:
"Listen, now, and keep still! The idea came to me not an hour ago, this
morning, looking over the city, here. We've got a finger on everything
but the atmosphere, the most important thing of all. If we could control
that--"
"Of course, I understand," interrupted the other, blowing a ring of
smoke. "Unlimited power and so on. Looks very nice, and all. Only, it
can't be done. Air's too big, too fluid, too universal. Human powers
can't control it, any more than the ocean. Talk about monopolizing the
Atlantic, if you will, Flint. But for heaven's sake, drop--"
"Can't be done, eh?" exclaimed Flint, warmly, sitting down on the
desk-top and levelling a big-jointed forefinger at his partner. "That's
what every new idea has had to meet. It's no argument! People scoffed

at the idea of gas lighting when it was new. Called it 'burning smoke,'
and made merry over it. That was as recently as 1832. But ten years
later, gas-illumination was in full sway.
"Electric lighting met the same objection. And remember the objection
to the telephone? When Congress, in 1843, granted Morse an
appropriation of $30,000 to run the first telegraph line from Baltimore
to Washington, one would-be humorist in that supremely intelligent
body tried to introduce an amendment that part of the sum should be
spent in surveying a railroad to the moon! And--"
[Illustration: "Can't be done, Eh?" said Flint.]
"Granted," put in Waldron, "that my objection is futile, just what's your
idea?"
"This!" And Flint