lved the riddle of the universe!" He paused impressively. "Well,
why don't you say something?"

"Uh!" I gasped. "It's--uh--marvelous!"

"Not for van Manderpootz," he said modestly.

"But--what is it?"

"Eh--Oh!" He frowned. "Well, I'll tell you, Dixon. You won't
understand, but I'll tell you." He coughed. "As far back as the early
twentieth century," he resumed, "Einstein proved that energy is
particular. Matter is also particular, and now van Manderpootz adds that
space and time are discrete!" He glared at me.

"Energy and matter are particular," I murmured, "and space and time are
discrete! How very moral of them!"

"Imbecile!" he blazed. "To pun on the words of van Manderpootz! You know
very well that I mean particular and discrete in the physical sense.
Matter is composed of particles, therefore it is particular. The
particles of matter are called electrons, protons, and neutrons, and
those of energy, quanta. I now add two others, the particles of space I
call spations, those of time, chronons."

"And what in the devil," I asked, "are particles of space and time?"

"Just what I said!" snapped van Manderpootz. "Exactly as the particles
of matter are the smallest pieces of matter that can exist, just as
there is no such thing as a half of an electron, or for that matter,
half a quantum, so the chronon is the smallest possible fragment of
time, and the spation the smallest possible bit of space. Neither time
nor space is continuous; each is composed of these infinitely tiny
fragments."

"Well, how long is a chronon in time? How big is a spation in space?"

"Van Manderpootz has even measured that. A chronon is the length of time
it takes one quantum of energy to push one electron from one electronic
orbit to the next. There can obviously be no shorter interval of time,
since an electron is the smallest unit of matter and the quantum the
smallest unit of energy. And a spation is the exact volume of a proton.
Since nothing smaller exists, that is obviously the smallest unit of
space."

"Well, look here," I argued. "Then what's in between these particles of
space and time? If time moves, as you say, in jerks of one chronon each,
what's between the jerks?"

"Ah!" said the great van Manderpootz. "Now we come to the heart of the
matter. In between the particles of space and time, must obviously be
something that is neither space, time, matter, nor energy. A hundred
years ago Shapley anticipated van Manderpootz