. Parenthetically,
you mustn't judge any of these magazines by their names. It seems to be
a convention to use hyperbolic names for science-fiction magazines; a
heritage from what might be called an earlier and ruder day. What I do
for _Astonishing_ is really hard work, and I enjoy it. I'm working now on
one for them, based on J. W. Dunne's time-theories, if you know what they
are."

"I think so," Rand said. "Polydimensional time, isn't it? Based on an
effect Dunne observed and described--dreams obviously related to some
waking event, but preceding rather than following the event to which they
are related. I read Dunne's _Experiment with Time_ some years before the
war, and once, when I had nothing better to do, I recorded dreams for
about a month. I got a few doubtful-to-fair examples, and two
unmistakable Dunne-Effect dreams. I never got anything that would help
me pick a race-winner or spot a rise in the stock market, though."

"Well, you know, there's a case on record of a man who had a dream of
hearing a radio narration of the English Derby of 1933, including the
announcement that Hyperion had won, which he did," Pierre said. "The
dream was six hours before the race, and tallied very closely with the
phraseology used by the radio narrator. Here." He picked up a copy of
Tyrrell's _Science and Psychical Phenomena_ and leafed through it.

"Did this fellow cash in on it?" Rand asked.

"No. He was a Quaker, and violently opposed to betting. Here." He handed
the book to Rand. "Case Twelve."

Rand sat down on the edge of the desk, and read the section indicated,
about three pages in length.

"Well, I'll be damned!" he said, as he finished. The idea of anybody
passing up a chance like that to enrich himself literally smote him to
the vitals. "I see the British Society for Psychical Research checked
that case, and got verification from a couple of independent witnesses.
If the S.P.R. vouches for a story, it must be the McCoy; they're the
toughest-minded gang of confirmed skeptics anywhere in Christendom. They
take an attitude toward evidence that might be advantageously copied by
most of the district attorneys I've met, the one in this county being no
exception.... What's this story you're working on?"

"Oh, it's based on Dunne's precognition theories, plus a few ideas of my
own, plus a theory of alternate lines of time-sequence for alternate
probabilities," Pierre said. "See, here's the situation ..."

Half an hou