ant to ...
well, Charley, you came for something else." His face seemed to
lengthen. "And I must tell you ... Charley, I have been doing a lot of
work. I am hardly a professional scientist; I have been away too long."

"But--"

"It is true," Professor Lightning said sadly. "Never mind; I've had my
one discovery--how much an accident, no one may ever know. But I
neglected to widen the scope of what I had done; I generalized too
rapidly, my boy." He took a deep breath. "The method, the technique, is
very complex," he said. "But imagine it this way: a man comes to New
York. He explores it. Later, when he goes home, he is asked to draw a
map of it--and he can do so, because he has the experience. He has the
memory of New York, locked in his mind."

Charley nodded. "What does that have to do with me?" he said.

"The cells ... the cells of the body seem to have such a memory," the
professor said. "It is the basis of my technique."

Charley nodded. "O.K.," he said "I don't care how it works, so long as
it-- It does work, doesn't it?"

The professor shook his head. Very slowly, he said: "Not for you, my
boy. Not for you." He paused. "You see, you were born without arms. In
such a case the cellular memory does not seem to exist--like a man who
has never been to New York. He cannot draw the map. He has no memory to
begin with."

The silence this time was a long one.

At last Charley said: "But somebody could tell him. I mean about New
York, so he could draw the map."

"Perhaps," the professor said. "We are working on it. Some day--"

"But not today," Charley said. "Is that it?"

"I ... I'm afraid so," the professor said.

Charley sat for a long time, thinking. He pictured the carnival, and the
shrinking audiences. Could he explain to them why he couldn't get arms?
Would any audience stop to listen and digest the truth? Charley thought
of the armless man in the Flea Museum, and decided slowly that no
explanation would be good enough. People didn't stop to make small
distinctions. Not in a sideshow. Not in a carnival.

No.

There was only one thing he could do; he saw that clearly. But it took
him a long time to find the right words. At last he had them.

"Professor," he said, "suppose I go right back to being a sideshow
exhibit--but with a limited audience."

Professor Lightning looked puzzled. "What do you mean?" he said.

"Well," Charley said, carefully and with a sudden, surprising feeling of
hope, "you do