time.
From his home he had called the Swami at his hotel and commanded him to
report to the general manager's office at once. Apparently they both got
there about the same time, and Henry had waded right in.

Apparently Henry, too, had spent a restless night. He accused the Swami
of inefficiency, bungling, fraud, deliberate insubordination, and a few
other assorted faults for having made a fool out of us all at the
seance. He'd as much as commanded the Swami to cut out all this
shilly-shallying and get down to the business of activating antigrav
cylinders, or else. He hadn't been specific about what the "or else"
would entail.

It was up to me to pick up the pieces, if I could.

"Now I'm sure he really didn't mean--" I began to pour oil on the
troubled waters. "With your deep insight, Swami--The fate of great
martyrs throughout the ages--" Gradually the ego-building phrases calmed
him down. He grew willing to listen, if for no more than the
anticipation of hearing more of them.

He settled down into the crying chair at last, and I could see his
valence shifting from outraged anger to a vast and noble forgiveness.
This much was not difficult. To get him to cooeperate, consciously and
enthusiastically, well that might not be so easy.

Each trade has its own special techniques. The analytical chemist has a
series of routines he tries when he wishes to reduce an unknown compound
to its constituents. To the chemically uneducated, this may appear to be
a fumbling, hit or miss, kind of procedure. The personnel man, too, has
his series of techniques. It may appear to be no more than random,
pointless conversation.

I first tried the routine process of reasoning. I didn't expect it to
work; it seldom does, but it can't be eliminated until it has been
tested.

* * * * *

"You must understand," I said slowly, soothingly, "that our intentions
are constructive. We are simply trying to apply the scientific method to
something which has, heretofore, been wrapped in mysticism."

The shocked freezing of his facial muscles told me that reasoning had
missed its mark. It told me more.

"Science understands nothing, nothing at all!" he snapped, "Science
tries to reduce everything to test tubes and formulae; but I am the
instrument of a mystery which man can never know."

"Well, now," I said reasonably. "Let us not be inconsistent. You say
this is something man was not meant to know; yet you, you