erty-stricken millions?"

Flint grimaced, showing a glint of his gold tooth--his substitute for a
smile.

"That's all reckoned for," he answered. "I thought I made it quite
clear, in our previous talk. To begin with, we will withdraw the oxygen
from the atmosphere so slowly that at first there won't be any
noticeable effect on the out-door air. For a while, the only thing that
will be noticed by the world will be that our gas service, to private
residences and institutions, will result in greatly increased comfort
and health to the better classes. And the cost will be so low--at first,
mind you, only at first--that every family of any means at all can take
it. In fact, Wally, we can afford practically to give away the service,
for the first year, until we get our grip firmly fixed on the throat of
the world. Do you get the idea?"

Waldron nodded, as he drew leisurely on his cigar.

"Practical to a degree," he answered. "That is, until the poor begin to
gasp for breath. But what then?"

"By the time the outer atmosphere really begins to show the effect of
withdrawing a considerable percentage of the oxygen," Flint answered,
"we will have our pocket respirators on the market. Well-to-do people
will as soon think of going out without their shoes, as they will with
their respirators. No, there won't be any visible tubes or attachments,
Wally. Nothing of that kind. Only, each person will carry a properly
insulated cake of solidified oxygen that will evaporate through the
special apparatus and surround him with a normally rich atmosphere.
And--"

"Yes, but the poor? The workers? What of them?"

"Devil take _them_, if it comes to that!" retorted Flint, with some
heat. "Who ever gives them any serious attention, as it is? Who bothers
about their health? They eat and drink and breathe the leavings,
anyhow--eat the cheapest and most adulterated food, drink the vilest
slop and breathe the most vitiated slum air. Nobody cares, except
perhaps those crazy Socialists that once in a while get up on the
street-corner and howl about the rights of man and all that rubbish!
Working-class? What do _I_ care about the cattle? Let them die, if they
want to! D'you suppose, for one minute, I'm going to limit or delay this
big innovation, because there's a working-class that may suffer?"

"They'll do more than suffer, Flint, if you seriously depreciate the
atmosphere. They'll die!"

"Well, let them, and be damned to them!" retorted Fli