The Raymer enterprise., 1918-05-02

pubic ne vas unknown, but amone
the learned he was mentioned in the
same breath with Faraday. Sir Isaac
Newton and Lavolsier. Halfeld OF the
March Hares' club had once honored
him by publicly comparing him with
james /.
He had discovered the secret Of cold
light. and had received fortune from
one Of the largest electrical companies
for destroying his papers. This en-.
abled him TO free himself from the
poverty In which he had lived.
He had blsected an iOn-upon a
blackboard; thing considered theo-
retically impossible.
He had solved the problem Of utillz-
Ing solar energy, although he had not
succeeded In making his process valu-
able commercially.
Unfortunately. like many men of
genius. MacBeard had one disastrous
falling. He had trained himself intel
lectually at the expense Of his moral
faculties. He had never learned to
control his primal gutter-urchin pro-
pensities.
He was a thief.
He did not steal big things. but little
ones, and everyone knows that this Ia
more damning socially.
They called 1t kleptomanIa. and let
him resign. But It was not klepto.
mania; II was theft. MacBenrd's ca.
reer was finished. The only club that
would admit him to membership was
the Inventors'-and that only because
the furious chickering's Of Its members
had compelled the passage Of a rule
that there should be no blackballing.
Anyone could join the Inventors club,
but only inventors wanted to.
MacBeard. embittered, brooded over
his wrongs. They assumed monstrous
proportions In his mind. He was al
ready approaching fifty; he believed
that at death the soul perlshes with
the body. and the thought of his g.
gantlc brain being obllterated filed
him with frenzy. He wanted to make
a lasting mark upon the world.
His first idea was to use his SOLAR
energy plant to produce simultaneous
eruptions Of the volcanoes In Italy and
Iceland, Japan and California upon an
unprecedented scale. A lava desert
should cover all the titled fields and
cities, burying man a thousand feet
under Its surface and obliteratlng civil
llzation.
The science and art Of nineteen
twentieths OF the world would dlsap-
pear. MacBeard not only hated the
world. which had made him an out
cast, but he despIsed 1t intellectually
as beyond redemption. He wanted to
bestride Its ruins as a superman,
god.
However, his scheme had several
drawbacks. II was utterly beyond his
financial means. He could not fore
see exactly the results of 1t. There
were disturbing possibilities, and he
was not the man to act without mathe-
matlcal exactitude.
His vengeance must take other forms.
He wanted less academic plan, one
which reeked less Of the midnight
lamp. He wanted a more concrete.
personal triumph. He wanted to lead
IN army to victory, not to sit back
and watch the working out Of blind
forces that he had set In motion.
Besides, destruction must be fol-
lowed by construction, to satisfy his
scientific mind.
His second thought was to produce
a race Of men. somewhere In the Ice
bound wastes of Greenland, that
should grow to maturity In a few
years; race organized for war, a pri-
nal blend Of man and tiger. It had
been done with the plants.
But he was too old. He would he
seventy before this plan could be car
ried to perfection. And then II was
improbable that the details would
work out as he anticipated. His final
Idea came through Masterman.
Masterman was one Of the many
men whom he had broken In his days
Of power. But Masterman was Of
different caliber from the rest. Mas
terman had tried to come back, and
had almost succeeded.
MacBeard. at first contemptuous Of
the old dreamer. came at last to watch
Masterman uneasily. He knew that