Chapter 50

Slowly the minutes ticked on, and had anyone been there to see, it must have seemed like some ceremony of black magic. The furnace glowing white hot, and in the circle of light thrown by it two elderly men sitting in chairs--one gently stroking his mutton-chop whiskers, the other muttering restlessly to himself. And then outside the ring of light--darkness. Every now and then a sizzling hiss came from inside the furnace, as the chemical process advanced another stage towards completion--that completion which mea…