t, not Alfred," I corrected her. I'm not touchy, goodness
knows, but afterall a name's a piece of property.

"Your pardon, Albert." She looked down at me with such a placatory and
genuinely feminine smile I decided I'd been foolish to be offended.
She's a nut of course, I thought indulgently, someone whose life is
bounded by theories and testtubes, a woman with no conception of
practical reality. Instead of being affronted it would be better to show
her patiently how essential my help was to her.

"Of all people," she went on, searching my face with those discomfiting
eyes, "of all people Ive the least cause for moral snobbery. Anxious to
get a few dollars to carry on my work--and what was such anxiety but
selfindulgence?--I threw the Metamorphizer to you and the world before I
realized that it was not only imperfect, but faulty. Hell is paved with
good intentions and the first result of my desire to benefit mankind has
been to injure the Dinkmans. Meditation in place of infatuation would
have shown me both the immediate and ultimate wrongs. I doubt if youd
been gone an hour yesterday when I knew I'd made a blunder in permitting
you to go out with danger in both hands."

"I don't know what youre getting at," I said stiffly, for it sounded as
though she were regarding me as a child.

"Why, as I was sitting, composing my thoughts toward extending the
effectiveness of the Metamorphizer beyond gramina, it suddenly became
clear to me I'd erred about not knowing how long the effect of the
inoculations would last."

"You mean you found out?" If she brought the thing under control and the
effect lasted a specified time there might be repeat business afterall.

"I found out a great deal by using speculation and logic for a change
instead of my hands and memory. I sat and thought, and though this is an
unorthodox way for a scientist to proceed, I profited by it. I reasoned:
if you change the genetic structure of a plant you change it
permanently; not for a day or an hour, but for its existence. I'm not
speaking of chance mutations, you understand, Weener, coming about over
a course of generations, generations which include sports, degenerates,
atavars andsoforth; but of controlled changes, brought about through
human intervention. Inoculation by the Metamorphizer might be compared
to cutting off a man's leg or transplanting part of his brain.
Albert--what happens when you cut off a man's leg?"

I was tired of being talked