wed.

"I have been in your house for a week, now, Professor Parkhurst, and I
have merely encountered you at meals."

"Often enough," said the Professor, making a sudden turn that almost
upset Jarvis. "I go fifty steps up, and fifty steps back," he explained,
and Jarvis stared at him open-mouthed.

"You count your steps?" he repeated.

"Certainly, no matter what I do, I count. When I eat, when I sleep,
walk, talk, think, I always count."

"How awful! A human metronome. I must make a note of that." And Jarvis
took out a notebook to make an entry.

"You have the notebook habit?" snorted the Professor.

"Yes, I can't afford to waste ideas, suggestions, thoughts."

"Bah! A most offensive habit."

"I gather, from your general attitude," Jarvis began again, "that you
dislike me."

"I neither like nor dislike you. I don't know you."

"You never will know me, at this rate."

"I am not sure that I care to."

"Why not? What have you against me?"

"You are not practical."

"Do you consider yourself practical?"

"I do. I am the acme of practical. I am mathematical."

He slew another bug.

"How can you do that?" cried Jarvis, his concern in his face. "That slug
has a right to life. Why don't you get the point of view of the slug?"

"He kills my roses," justified the Professor. "He's a murderer. Society
has a right to extinguish him."

"The old fallacy, a tooth for a tooth?"

"You'd sacrifice my roses to save this insect?"

"I'd teach the rose to take care of itself."

"You're crazy," he snapped, and walked on, Jarvis at his heels.

"I didn't come to quarrel with you about our views of gardening, or of
life. I realize that we have no common ground. You are of the Past, and
I am of the Future."

"There is nobody more modern than I am!" cried the Professor.

"Rubbish! No modern wastes his life in rows of inanimate numerals. We
get out and work at humanity and its problems."

"What are the problems of humanity?"

"Food, employment, education, health."

"All of them mathematical. Economics is mathematical."

"Well, I wish instead of teaching a few thousand students higher algebra
that you had taught your own daughter a little common sense."

"Common sense is not taught. It is a gift of the gods, like genius,"
said the Professor.

Jarvis glanced at him quickly, and took out the notebook.

"Put that thing away!" shouted the Professor. "I will not be annotated."

Jarvis meekly returned it to his po