xt St.
Patrick's Day. For I had indeed determined the true coefficient of
discharge, which I never could have done so quickly without those
sessions in the glade with Keech and his working model.

It would go down in scientific literature now, I suppose, as Houlihan's
Equation, and that was honor and glory enough for me. I could do without
Keech's pot of gold, though it would have been pleasant to be truly rich
for a change.

There was no sense in cheating him out of the gold to boot, for
leprechauns are most clever in matters of this sort and he would have
had it back soon enough--or else made it a burden in some way.

Indeed, I had done a piece of work greatly to my advantage, and also to
the advantage of humankind, and when a man can do the first and include
the second as a fortunate byproduct it is a most happy accident.

For if I had shown the little people how to make a spaceship they would
have left our world. And this world, as long as it lasts--what would it
be in that event? I ask you now, wouldn't we be even _more_ likely to
blow ourselves to Kingdom Come without the little people here for us to
believe in every now and then?

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from _Fantastic Universe_ September 1955.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
typographical errors have been corrected without note.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Houlihan's Equation, by Walt Sheldon

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOULIHAN'S EQUATION ***

***** This file should be named 29168.txt or 29168.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/1/6/29168/

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

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is