ere. We shall have
everything settled by the time you get back."

"If you have, I'll make you a present of the controlling interest in
Steel and buy myself a chair in some home for feeble-minded old women.
Your ignorance and unwillingness to believe any new idea do not change
the facts in any particular. Even before they went to Osnome, Seaton was
hard to get, as you found out. On that trip he learned so much new stuff
that it is now impossible to kill him by any ordinary means. You should
realize that fact when he kills every gangster you send against him. At
all events be very, _very_ careful not to kill his wife in any of your
attacks, even by accident, until after you have killed him."

"Such an event would be regrettable, certainly, in that it would remove
all possibility of the abduction."

"It would remove more than that. Remember the explosion in our
laboratory, that blew an entire mountain into impalpable dust? Draw in
your mind a nice, vivid picture of one ten times the size in each of our
plants and in this building. I know that you are fool enough to go ahead
with your own ideas, in spite of everything I've said; and, since I do
not yet actually control Steel, I can't forbid you to, officially. But
you should know that I know what I'm talking about, and I say again that
you're going to make an utter fool of yourself; just because you won't
believe anything possible, that hasn't been done every day for a hundred
years. I wish that I could make you understand that Seaton and Crane
have got something that we haven't--but for the good of our plants, and
incidentally for your own, please remember one thing, anyway; for if you
forget it, we won't have a plant left and you personally will be blown
into a fine red mist. Whatever you start, kill Seaton first, and be
absolutely certain that he is definitely, completely, finally and
totally dead before you touch one of Dorothy Seaton's red hairs. As long
as you only attack him personally he won't do anything but kill every
man you send against him. If you kill her while he's still alive,
though--Blooie!" and the saturnine scientist waved both hands in an
expressive pantomime of wholesale destruction.

"Probably you are right in that," Brookings paled slightly. "Yes, Seaton
would do just that. We shall be very careful, until after we succeed in
removing him."

"Don't worry--you won't succeed. I shall attend to that detail myself,
as soon as I get back. Seaton and C