Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 7, 1925 — page 57: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

al = = — a teetin = ao WHERE SHE BELONGS... quickly—but never before had they fur- nished him with quite so much information as this morning, for DR. HELEN HARKTON ROCKS SCIEN- TIFIC WORLD BY DISCOVERY OF NEW ELEMENT !!! crashed past his eye-balls and into his brain; and as if this were not enough the subhead advised him that FOREMOST WOMAN SCIENTIST WINS $50,000 SCATHMORE PRIZE CHAPTER VI. DR. HARKTON. FTER all, Samuel was a business man. When thirty thrilling seconds had passed, when his cheek had whitened and his breathing had become jerky and ir- regular, his first audible observation was: “ Fifty—wins what? Wins fifty thou- sand dollars?” : Mrs. Harkton pushed back the hair above her right ear and smiled, faintly. “Why, yes. That’s the Scathmore prize, awarded every ten years, you know, for the most important scientific discovery of the decade.” ‘“And you—you won this prize?” “So they say, Sam.” ‘“You—you won fifty thousand dollars, Nell?” Samuel mouthed on, quite sense- lessly. Mrs. Harkton nodded tolerantly, yet with a hint of impatience. : “It’s not paid yet, if that’s what you mean. It will not be for several weeks, I believe. [t—why, it’s unimportant in any case, isn’t it? JI mean, as compared with the thing itself?” ““It—yes, 1 suppose so,” Samuel mut- tered dazedly. His wife smiled faintly, perfunctorily, in the same patient, superior way, and re- adjusted her horn-rimmed glasses. Sam- uel’s own bewildered eyes gathered a faint impression: latterly it had been suggested that, in the vulgar phrase, his capable head had taken to swelling. Maybe it had; may- be it hadn’t; but this morning Helen seemed 527 to be suffering the same trouble, and that in a much more marked degree. Vague indignation rose warmly within Samuel—and cooled instantly, for the impossible newspaper was dragging at his attention. “It was officially announced yesterday afternoon by Dr. Charles Reening, head of the Research Department of the Scath- more Foundation, that his associate, Dr. Helen Harkton, after many months of the most complicated and involved labor, had definitely isolated and identified a new ele- ment which—” * Toast, Sam?” his wife asked se as she extended it. “* Uh—yes—thanks!” mumbled Hark- ton, Inc., and fumbled for it and found that his bewildered eye had passed to: “of such immeasurable importance, both from a purely scientific standpoint and because of its possible endless indus- trial applications, as Dr. Harkton’s epoch- making discovery, the board of trustees, which also constitutes the Scathmore Foundation Board of Awards, agreed unani- mously that the decade’s fifty-thousand- dollar prize should be awarded Dr. Helen Harkton. “The element has been named Nel- lium, and—” “* Nellium?” Samuel echoed. “‘ They—er—decided to call it that,” Helen smiled modestly. 4 Why?” “ After me, of course.” “ Huh? Why not—why not ‘ Helenium,’ then?” Too much like helium, Sam.” “ Well, that’s all right, too; I don’t know anything about helium, and I don’t know anything about naming elements; but this —this ‘ Nellium ’ stuff 1s too intimate and informal. Who gave it that name? Your” “Te? No.” “It wasn’t Reening?” “ No, it wasn’t Dr. Reening.” ““ So it was this man Rivers, eh?” “Yes, I believe he did suggest it.” Ss Well that’s precisely what I thought!” said Samuel Harkton, “And I think we’ll have that changed over to something else. - —€omicbooks.co