YOU WERE WARNED YOUR RESIGNATION WOULD BE CONSIDERED FINAL STOP. IT IS FINAL.
It was signed by the administrative officer who had objected to the disarrangement of vacation-schedules in order that Murfree might stop—as it had developed—a radioactive-dust attack upon the United States.
MURFREE sank back gloomily into his plane-seat. He had to find a new source of income. He had to pay Bud Gregory thirty-six hundred and fifty dollars a year before he bought a loaf of bread for his own family. To live as he'd lived before he'd have to make over eight thousand a year. And the only thing he had now that he hadn't possessed before was the gadget Bud Gregory had made.
Suddenly his face went blank. He whistled softly to himself. He stared out the plane-window for a long time. Then he went composedly to sleep.
When he joined his family at the seashore his wife was worried. She knew he'd left the Civil Service and had no immediate prospects. She asked him what his plans were. He grinned at her.
He unpacked the untidy parcel Bud Gregory had made for him—the device that had drawn water from a half-mile away. This was in the boarding-house where his wife and daughter had stayed while he was on the West Coast.
"I think I'll go in business for myself," he said comfortably. "Lend me your wedding-ring for capital, my dear."
Her expression was bewildered as she gave him the plain gold band. He put it in the focus of the device where Bud Gregory had put a drop of water. He sighted the gadget out of the window at the ocean. He turned it on. It would draw to itself any particles in its beam which happened to be of the same material as that in the focus of the device.
There was a metal plate to catch the drawn particles. His wife's golden wedding-ring was in the focus—and the sea contains gold. Only about a grain of gold to a ton of seawater, to be sure, but still—
A deposit of tiny, impalpable particles built up on the baffle-plate. Each infinitesimal grain, perhaps, came from a ton of seawater. But there were some thousands of billions of tons of seawater in view from the boardinghouse window, and it would change, more or less, with each tide. Gold-dust came to the baffle-plate with respectable speed. Murfree turned it off presently.
"This is useless stuff, though," he said. "I'll go out and buy you something made of platinum. That's useful—and it's worth more than gold besides. I'd rather go into the platinum-producing business, any day!"
His wife gaped at him. He explained.
"I have to pay Bud Gregory a pension," he explained, "and this is the answer. I'm going to build myself a laboratory and see if I can get an inkling of what he knows offhand.
"I'll be able to give him all the money he can use now and I've always wanted to do some research on my own. I know just about exactly—what sort of a laboratory I want!"
Then he added: "Somewhere on the seashore."