d the attitudinizor, and I must confess that he stood the shock
of the first trial somewhat better than I did. After a surprised "Oof!"
he settled down to a complacent analysis of my point of view, while I
sat somewhat self-consciously under his calm appraisal. Calm, that is,
for about three minutes.

Suddenly he leaped to his feet, tearing the device from a face whose
normal ruddiness had deepened to a choleric angry color. "Get out!" he
roared. "So _that's_ the way van Manderpootz looks to you! Moron! Idiot!
Imbecile! Get out!"

* * * * *

It was a week or ten days later that I happened to be passing the
University on my way from somewhere to somewhere else, and I fell to
wondering whether the professor had yet forgiven me. There was a light
in the window of his laboratory over in the Physics Building, so I
dropped in, making my way past the desk where Carter labored, and the
corner where Miss Fitch sat in dull primness at her endless task of
transcribing lecture notes.

Van Manderpootz greeted me cordially enough, but with a curious
assumption of melancholy in his manner. "Ah, Dixon," he began, "I am
glad to see you. Since our last meeting, I have learned much of the
stupidity of the world, and it appears to me now that you are actually
one of the more intelligent contemporary minds."

This from van Manderpootz! "Why--thank you," I said.

"It is true. For some days I have sat at the window overlooking the
street there, and have observed the viewpoints of the passers-by. Would
you believe"--his voice lowered--"would you believe that only seven and
four-tenths percent are even aware of the _existence_ of van
Manderpootz? And doubtless many of the few that are, come from among the
students in the neighborhood. I knew that the average level of
intelligence was low, but it had not occurred to me that it was as low
as that."

"After all," I said consolingly, "you must remember that the
achievements of van Manderpootz are such as to attract the attention of
the intelligent few rather than of the many."

"A very silly paradox!" he snapped. "On the basis of that theory, since
the higher one goes in the scale of intelligence, the fewer individuals
one finds, the greatest achievement of all is one that _nobody_ has
heard of. By that test you would be greater than van Manderpootz, an
obvious _reductio ad absurdum_."

He glared his reproof that I should even have thought of the point, the