ictures, such as the eye produces when a microphotograph is taken
through it. The fly sees one picture just as we do; in the same way as
our brain rights the upside-down image cast on our retina, the fly's
brain reduces the compound image to one. And beyond these impressions
were a wild hodge-podge of smell-sensations, and a strange desire to
burst through the invisible glass barrier into the brighter light
beyond. But I had no time to analyze these sensations, for suddenly
there was a flash of something infinitely clearer than the dim
cerebrations of a fly.

For half a minute or longer I was unable to guess what that momentary
flash had been. I knew that I had seen something incredibly lovely, that
I had tapped a viewpoint that looked upon something whose very presence
caused ecstasy, but whose viewpoint it was, or what that flicker of
beauty had been, were questions beyond my ability to answer.

I slipped off the attitudinizor and sat staring perplexedly at the
buzzing fly on the pane of glass. Out in the other room van Manderpootz
continued his harangue to the repentant Carter, and off in a corner
invisible from my position I could hear the rustle of papers as Miss
Fitch transcribed endless notes. I puzzled vainly over the problem of
what had happened, and then the solution dawned on me.

The fly must have buzzed between me and one of the occupants of the
outer laboratory. I had been following its flight with the faintly
visible beam of the attitudinizor's light, and that beam must have
flickered momentarily on the head of one of the three beyond the glass.
But which? Van Manderpootz himself? It must have been either the
professor or Carter, since the secretary was quite beyond range of the
light.

It seemed improbable that the cold and brilliant mind of van Manderpootz
could be the agency of the sort of emotional ecstasy I had sensed. It
must therefore, have been the head of the mild and inoffensive little
Carter that the beam had tapped. With a feeling of curiosity I slipped
the device back on my own head and sent the beam sweeping dimly into the
larger room.

It did not at the time occur to me that such a procedure was quite as
discreditable as eavesdropping, or even more dishonorable, if you come
right down to it, because it meant the theft of far more personal
information than one could ever convey by the spoken word. But all I
considered at the moment was my own curiosity; I wanted to learn what
sort of v