tion.

His own brief account of the interview accords very well with the single
reference to the Wonder which exists in the literature of the world.
This reference is a footnote to a second edition of Grossmann's
brochure entitled "An Explanation of Certain Intellectual Abnormalities
reported in History" ("Eine Erklaerung gewisser Intellektueller
geschichtlich ueberlieferter Anormalen Erscheinungen"). This footnote
comes at the end of Grossmann's masterly analysis of the Heinecken case
and reads: "I recently examined a similar case of abnormality in
England, but found that it presented no such marked divergence from the
type as would demand serious investigation."

And in his brief account of the interview rendered to Challis and Elmer,
Herr Grossmann, in effect, did no more than draft that footnote.

IV

It must remain uncertain, now, whether or not Elmer would have persisted
in his endeavour to exploit the Wonder to the confounding of Grossmann,
despite Challis's explicit statement that he would do no more, not even
if it were to save the reputation of the Royal Society. Elmer certainly
had the virtue of persistence and might have made the attempt. But in
one of his rare moments of articulate speech, the Wonder decided the
fate of that threatened controversy beyond the possibility of appeal.

He spoke to Challis that same afternoon. He put up his tiny hand to
command attention and made the one clear statement on record of his own
interests and ambitions in the world.

Challis, turning from his discovery of the Professor's crushed glasses,
listened in silence.

"This Grossmann," the Wonder said, "was not concerned in my exemption?"

Challis shook his head. "He is the last," the Wonder concluded with a
fine brevity. "You and your kind have no interest in truth."

That last statement may have had a double intention. It is obvious from
the Wonder's preliminary question,--which had, indeed, also the quality
of an assertion,--how plainly he had recognised that Grossmann had been
introduced under false pretences. But, it is permissible to infer that
the pronouncement went deeper than that. The Wonder's logic penetrated
far into the mysteries of life and he may have seen that Grossmann's
attitude was warped by the human limitations of his ambition to shine as
a great exponent of science; that he dared not follow up a line of
research which might end in the invalidation of his great theory of
heredity.

Victor St