"
"Wonderful!" exclaimed O'Connor, who had not heard the remark of
his subordinate and was watching with undisguised admiration.
"Kennedy, how did you ever think of such a thing?"
"Why, it's used for welding, you know," answered Craig as he
continued to work calmly in the growing excitement: "I first saw
it in actual use in mending a cracked cylinder in an automobile.
The cylinder was repaired without being taken out at all. I've
seen it weld new teeth and build up old worn teeth on gearing, as
good as new."
He paused to let us see the terrifically heated metal under the
flame.
"You remember when we were talking on the drive about the raid,
O'Connor? A car-load of scrap-iron went by on the railroad below
us. They use this blowpipe to cut it up, frequently. That's what
gave me the idea. See. I turn on the oxygen now in this second
nozzle. The blowpipe is no longer an instrument for joining
metals together, but for cutting them asunder. The steel burns
just as you, perhaps, have seen a watch-spring burn in a jar of
oxygen. Steel, hard or soft, tempered, annealed, chrome, or
Harveyised, it all burns just as fast and just as easily. And
it's cheap too. This raid may cost a couple of dollars, as far as
the blowpipe is concerned--quite a difference from the thousands
of dollars' loss that would follow an attempt to blow the door
in.
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