dia and bowls instead of laboratories and
classrooms. Physical perfection has become a fetish and that is
being highly commercialized.

"When Einstein delivers an important pronouncement, an
announcement that is of universal importance, the papers
facetiously give it a few paragraphs. But when a center receives
the football and runs several hundred yards with it, the papers
get hysterical--"

"A center, Professor? Several hundred yards?" murmured Matthews.

Professor Brierly glared at him. Matthews gently corrected him:

"A center wouldn't be permitted to receive a pass, or run several
hundred yards or--"

"Well, the tacklers, then, or the guardsmen."

"Nor the tackles or guards, Professor," murmured Matthews.

"Keep quiet!" snapped Professor Brierly. "What difference does it
make. The point I am making is that the mass is taught to pay too
much attention to perfectly inconsequential things while they
ignore or overlook the things of sound worth.

"You can get, at most, only a handful of persons to listen to a
sound informative lecture, whereas seventy thousand persons will
sit in a freezing rain to watch Cagle, of Southern California, or
Grange, of Yale--"

Matthews again interrupted:

"Better not make it public, Professor, that Cagle played on the
Trojans team, or Grange for old Eli. If it became known--"

"You are the saddest commentary of the truth of what I am saying,"
snarled the old scientist. "How can a person know the worthwhile
things when he stores his mind with such trivial--you know far too
much of such things, young man."

Martha came to the door and told Jimmy that he was wanted on the
telephone. She also emphatically gave it as her opinion that a man
who spoke as did the caller on the telephone was no gentleman.

With the utterance of his "Hello," Hite's growl came over the
wire.

"The way you act anyone would think that you were on a vacation.
Where the hell were you? I've been trying to get you in all the
places you should be if you're on the job. I was at the club and
just got a flash that something big broke, something in connection
with the Tontine group. I've been trying to get you. Where the
hell were you?"

"Just came from the police station a few minutes ago, chief. What
is it?"

"How the hell do I know what it is? Who's on the story, you or I?
I called up the police, every department, from the cops up. I
can't get a word out of 'em. I know something big broke the way
the