they?" asked Professor Eddinger. He spoke simply as one stating
simple facts. "I love my fellow men," he said, "and I killed them in
thousands in the last war--I, and my science, and my poison gas."

The figure of Avery slumped suddenly upon a chair; his face was buried
in his hands. "And I would have been," he groaned, "the greatest man in
the world."

"You shall be greater," said the Professor, "though only we shall know
it--you and I.... You will save the world--from itself."

The figure, bowed and sunken in the chair, made no move; the man was
heedless of the kindly hand upon his shoulder. His voice, when he spoke,
was that of one afar off, speaking out of a great loneliness. "You don't
understand," he said dully; "you can't--"

But Professor Eddinger, a cog in the wheels of a great educational
machine, glanced at the watch on his wrist. Again his thin shoulders
were stooped, his voice tired. "My classes," he said. "I must be
going...."

* * * * *

In the gathering dusk Professor Eddinger locked carefully the door of
his office. He crossed beyond his desk and fumbled with his one hand for
his keys.

There was a cabinet to be opened, and he stared long in the dim light at
the object he withdrew. He looked approvingly at the exquisite
workmanship of an instrument where a generator of the cathode ray and an
intricate maze of tubing surmounted electro-magnets and a round lead
bulb. There were terminals for attaching heavy cables; it was a
beautiful thing.... His useless arm moved to bring an imaginary hand
before the window of quartz in the lead sphere.

"Power," he whispered and repeated Avery's words; "power, to build a
city--or destroy a civilization ... and I hold it in one hand."

He replaced the apparatus in the safety of its case. "The saviors of
mankind!" he said, and his tone was harsh and bitter.

But a smile, whimsical, kindly, crinkled his tired eyes as he turned to
his desk and its usual litter of examination papers.

"It is something, Avery," he whispered to that distant man, "to belong
in so distinguished a group."

A STAR THAT BREATHES

Beta Cephei, the mysterious Milky Way star which expands and contracts
as though it were breathing, at last has a biography.

A summary of known facts concerning the star, interpreted in the light
of recent observations at the Lick Observatory at the University of
California was completed recently by H. S. Mendenhall