man to unravel a scientific mystery such as that which confronted
this galaxy of immortals.

The Committee on Data, of which Thornton was a member, having been
actively at work for nearly two weeks through wireless communication
with all the observatories--seismic, meteorological, astronomical, and
otherwise--throughout the world, had reduced its findings to print, and
this matter, translated into French, German, and Italian, had already
been distributed among those present. Included in its pages was Quinn's
letter to the State Department.

The roll having been called, the president of the National Academy of
Sciences made a short speech in which he outlined briefly the purpose
for which the committee had been summoned and commented to some extent
upon the character of the phenomena it was required to analyze.

And then began an unending series of discussions and explanations in
French, German, Dutch, Russian, and Italian, by goggle-eyed,
bushy-whiskered, long-haired men who looked like anarchists or
sociologists and apparently had never before had an unrestricted
opportunity to air their views on anything.

Thornton, listening to this hodgepodge of technicalities, was dismayed
and distrustful. These men spoke a language evidently familiar to them,
which he, although a professional scientist, found a meaningless jargon.
The whole thing seemed unreal, had a purely theoretic or literary
quality about it that made him question even their premises. In the
tainted air of the council room, listening to these little pot-bellied
_Professoren_ from Amsterdam and Muenich, doubt assailed him, doubt even
that the earth had changed its orbit, doubt even of his own established
formulae and tables. Weren't they all just talking through their hats?
Wasn't it merely a game in which an elaborate system of equivalents gave
a semblance of actuality to what in fact was nothing but mind-play? Even
Wells, whose literary style he admired as one of the beauties as well as
one of the wonders of the world, had been a disappointment. He had
seemed singularly halting and unconvincing.

"I wish I knew a practical man--I wish Bennie Hooker were here!"
muttered Thornton to himself. He had not seen his classmate Hooker for
twenty-six years; but that was one thing about Hooker: you knew he'd be
exactly the same--only more so--as he was when you last saw him. In
those years Bennie had become the Lawson Professor of Applied Physics at
Harvard. Thorn