pens
to any man doesnt happen to everyman? Are you not your brother's
keeper?" She twisted her hands together. "Not responsible! Why, you are
responsible for every brutality, execution, meanness and calamity in the
world today!"

I had often heard that the borderline between profundity and insanity
was thin and inexact and it was now clear on which side she stood. I
looked at Gootes to see how he was taking her hysterical outburst, but
he had found a batch of empty testtubes which he was building into a
perilously swaying structure.

"Of course, of course," I agreed soothingly, backing away. "Youre quite
right."

She walked the floor as if her awkward body were a burden. "Is the
instant response to an obvious truth--platitude even--always a diagnosis
of lunacy? I state a thought so old no one knows who first expressed it
and a hearer feels bound to choose between offense to himself and
contempt for the speaker. Believe me, Weener, I was offering no
exclusive indictment: I too am guilty--infinitely culpable. Even if I
had devoted my life to pure science--perhaps even more certainly
then--patterning myself on a medieval monastic, faithful to vows of
poverty and singleness of purpose; even if I had not, for an apparently
laudable end, betrayed my efforts to a base greed; even if I had never
picked for a moment's use such an unworthy--do not be insulted again,
Weener, unworthiness is a fact, insofar as there are any facts at
all--such an unworthy tool as yourself; even if I had never compounded
the Metamorphizer; even if I had been a biologist or an astronomer--even
then I should be guilty of ruining the Dinkmans and making them
homeless, just as you are guilty and the reporter here is guilty and the
garbageman is guilty and the pastor in his pulpit is guilty."

"Guilty," exclaimed Gootes suddenly, "guilty! What kind of a lousy
newspaperman am I? Worrying about guilt and solutions in the face of
impending calamity instead of serving it redhot to a palpitating public.
Guilty--hell, I ought to be fired. Or anyway shot. Where's the phone?"

"I manage a minimum of privacy in spite of inquiring reporters and
unemployed canvassers. I have no telephone."

"Hokay. Hole everythings. I return immediate."

I followed him for I had no desire to be left alone with someone who
might prove dangerous. But his long legs took him quickly out of sight
before I could catch him, even by running, and so I fell into a more
sedate pace. A