"Imagine that we extract oxygen from the air.

Then--" "You might as well try to dip up the ocean with a spoon," said Waldron, "as try to vitiate the atmosphere of the whole world, by any means whatsoever! But even if you could, what then ?" "Look here!" exclaimed the Billionaire.

"It only needs a reduction of 10 per cent.

in the atmospheric oxygen to make the air so bad that nobody can breathe it without discomfort and pain.

Take out any more and people will die! We don't have to monopolize _all_ the oxygen, but only a very small fraction, and the world will come gasping to us, like so many fish out of water, falling over each other to buy!" "Possibly.