The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Common Man, by
Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Common Man

Author: Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)

Illustrator: Schelling

Release Date: October 25, 2007 [EBook #23194]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMMON MAN ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

The Common Man

It would, of course, take a trio
of Ivory Tower scientists to conceive of
tracking down that statistical entity,
the Common Man, and testing out an idea on him.
And only the Ivory Tower type would predict
that egregiously wrongly!

by Guy McCord

Illustrated by Schelling

[Illustration]

Frederick Braun, M.D., Ph.D., various other Ds, pushed his slightly
crooked horn-rims back on his nose and looked up at the two-story wooden
house. There was a small lawn before it, moderately cared for, and one
tree. There was the usual porch furniture, and the house was going to
need painting in another six months or so, but not quite yet. There was
a three-year-old hover car parked at the curb of a make that anywhere
else in the world but America would have been thought ostentatious in
view of the seeming economic status of the householder.

Frederick Braun looked down at the paper in his hand, then up at the
house again. He said to his two companions, "By Caesar, I will admit it
is the most average-looking dwelling I have ever seen."

Patricia O'Gara said impatiently, "Well, do we or don't we?" Her hair
should have been in a pony tail, or bouncing on her shoulders, or at
least in the new Etruscan revival style, not drawn back in its efficient
bun.

Ross Wooley was unhappy. He scratched his fingers back through his
reddish crew cut. "This is going to sound silly."

Patricia said testily, "We've been through all that, Rossie, good
heavens."

"Nothing ventured, nothing ..." Braun let the sentence dribble away as
he stuffed the paper into a coat pocket, which had obviously been used
as a waste receptacle for many a year, and led the way up the cement
walk, his younger