Walter Sills, a fifty-year-old impoverished chemist working in a dingy laboratory, finally achieves a lifelong ambition by discovering a method to isolate pure ammonium using a complex hydrazine derivative he names Ammonaline. Recognizing the immense value of a substance that can form cheap, gold-like oxides and serve as a superior plating material, Sills and his cheerful associate Eugene Taylor announce the breakthrough to the press.
Almost immediately, the discovery triggers a wave of chaotic greed. J. Throgmorton Bankhead, a worried captain of industry heading a plating corporation, attempts to buy the patent for a pittance to protect his business. Meanwhile, an opportunistic ex-congressman named Peter Q. Hornswoggle and a violent criminal known as Mike the Slug try to steal the secret formula through burglary and intimidation.
Despite break-ins, stolen paperwork, and armed threats, Sills and Taylor manage to hold onto the core of their research. They set up equipment to finally test the plating capabilities of the ammonium on a simple spoon, successfully producing a brilliant, golden coating inside a controlled environment.
However, the moment the ammonium-plated spoon is exposed to the open air, it releases a catastrophic and unimaginably horrific odor. The stench instantly incapacitates the chemists, drives away police guards, causes mass panic in the streets, and routs a visiting steel king.
Stripped of their stinking clothes and forced to take refuge neck-deep in the Hudson River, the two men contemplate the ruins of their triumph. Despite the nightmarish complications and the certainty of future lawsuits, Sills finds comfort in the enduring promise of fame and the potential Nobel Prize that still awaits him.
