't dig," Benson said, tapping the
sheets of onion-skin. "I don't even scratch the surface of this
rigamarole about The Guide. I'm going to get to work on this sample in
the lab, at school, though. Maybe we have something, here."

* * * * *

At eight-thirty the next evening, after four and a half hours work, he
stopped to check what he had found out.

The school's X-ray, an excellent one, had given him a complete picture
of the molecular structure of the syrup. There were a couple of
long-chain molecules that he could only believe after two
re-examinations and a careful check of the machine, but with the help of
the notes he could deduce how they had been put together. They would be
the Ingredient Alpha and Ingredient Beta referred to in the notes.

The components of the syrup were all simple and easily procurable with
these two exceptions, as were the basic components from which these were
made.

The mechanical guinea-pig demonstrated that the syrup contained nothing
harmful to human tissue.

Of course, there were the warnings about heightened psycho-physiological
effects....

He stuck a poison-label on the bottle, locked it up, and went home. The
next day, he and Bill Myers got a bottle of carbonated water and mixed
themselves a couple of drinks of it. It was delicious--sweet, dry, tart,
sour, all of these in alternating waves of pleasure.

"We do have something, Bill," he said. "We have something that's going
to give our income-tax experts headaches."

"You have," Myers corrected. "Where do you start fitting me into it?"

"We're a good team, Bill. I'm a chemist, but I don't know a thing about
people. You're a psychologist. A real one; not one of these night-school
boys. A juvenile psychologist, too. And what age-group spends the most
money in this country for soft-drinks?"

Knowing the names of the syrup's ingredients, and what their molecular
structure was like, was only the beginning. Gallon after gallon of the
School Board's chemicals went down the laboratory sink; Fred Benson and
Bill Myers almost lived in the fourth floor lab. Once or twice there
were head-shaking warnings from the principal about the dangers of
over-work. The watchmen, at all hours, would hear the occasional
twanging of Benson's guitar in the laboratory, and know that he had come
to a dead end on something and was trying to think. Football season came
and went; basketball season; the inevitable riot be