vince
them otherwise.

"Oh, you're _staying_ with us, Dr. Forsythe? How wonderful! We simply
_must_ have a talk sometime!"

"Indeed we must, dear lady," said Forsythe. His voice and manner had
just the right amount of benign dignity, with an almost indetectable
touch of pompous condescending.

"Come along, doctor; I'll show you to your office." Taggert's face
betrayed nothing of the enjoyment he was getting out of watching the
mental gymnastics of the two. Forsythe and Mrs. Jesser were similar in
some ways, but, of the two, Mrs. Jesser was actually the more honest.
She only fooled herself; she never tried to fool anyone else.
Forsythe, on the other hand, tried to put on a front for others, and,
in doing so, had managed to delude himself pretty thoroughly.

Taggert's humor was not malicious; he was not laughing at them. He was
admiring the skill of the human mind in tying itself in knots. When
one watches a clever contortionist going through his paces, one
doesn't laugh at the contortionist; one admires and enjoys the weird
twists he can get himself into. And, like Taggert, one can only feel
sympathy for one whose knots have become so devious and intricate that
he can never extricate himself.

"Just follow me up the stairs," Taggert said. "I'll show you where
your office is. Sorry we don't have an elevator, but this old building
just wasn't built for it, and we've never had any real need for one."

"Perfectly all right," Forsythe said, following along behind.

_Three weeks!_

Taggert had to assume that the minimum time prediction was the
accurate one. Damn! Why couldn't this last prediction have been as
precise as the one about the air flight from Puerto Rico?

It had taken six days for the "accredited" agents of the S.M.M.R. to
persuade Dr. Peter Forsythe that he should leave his little place on
the Boardwalk and come down to Arlington to work. It isn't easy to
persuade a man to leave a business that he's built up over a long
period of years, especially during the busy season. To leave the
Boardwalk during the summer would, as far as Forsythe was concerned,
be tantamount to economic suicide. He had to be offered not only an
income better than the one he was making, but better security as well.
At fifty-four, one does not lightly throw over the work of a lifetime.

Still, he had plenty of safeguards. The rent was paid on his Boardwalk
office, he had a guaranteed salary while he was working, and a
"research b