at least half a dozen complaints
that Mr. Koffler has made to us about different unfair work-assignments,
improper working conditions, inequities in allotting overtime work, and
other infractions of union-shop conditions, on behalf of Mr. Burris. So
you decided to get rid of both of them, and you think you can use this
clause in our contract with your company about persons of deficient
intelligence. The fact is, you're known to have threatened on several
occasions to get rid of both of them."

"I am?" Melroy looked at Crandall curiously, wondering if the latter
were serious, and deciding that he was. "You must believe _anything_
those people tell you. Well, they lied to you if they told you that."

"Naturally that's what you'd say," Crandall replied. "But how do you
account for the fact that those two men, and only those two men, were
dismissed for alleged deficient intelligence?"

"The tests aren't all made," Melroy replied. "Until they are, you can't
say that they are the only ones disqualified. And if you look over the
records of the tests, you'll see where Koffler and Burris failed and the
others passed. Here." He laid the pile of written-test forms and the
summary and evaluation sheets on the desk. "Here's Koffler's, and here's
Burris'; these are the ones of the men who passed the test. Look them
over if you want to."

Crandall examined the forms and summaries for the two men who had been
discharged, and compared them with several random samples from the
satisfactory pile.

"Why, this stuff's a lot of gibberish!" he exclaimed indignantly. "This
thing, here: ... five Limerick oysters, six pairs of Don Alfonso
tweezers, seven hundred Macedonian warriors in full battle array, eight
golden crowns from the ancient, secret crypts of Egypt, nine lymphatic,
sympathetic, peripatetic old men on crutches, and ten revolving
heliotropes from the Ipsy-Wipsy Institute!' Great Lord, do you actually
mean that you're using this stuff as an excuse for depriving men of
their jobs?"

"I warned you that you should have brought a professional psychologist
along," Melroy reminded him. "And maybe you ought to get Koffler and
Burris to repeat their complaints on a lie-detector, while you're at it.
They took the same tests, in the same manner, as any of the others. They
just didn't have the mental equipment to cope with them and the others
did. And for that reason, I won't run the risk of having them working on
this job."

"That's j