fascinating if abstruse conclusions.

* * * * *

But his brain would not remain away from the subject of the telegram,
even though a chicken appeared in the fenced-in lane ahead of him and
went flapping wildly on before the car. It rose in mid-air, the car
overtook it as it rose above the level of the hood, and there was a
rolling, squawking bundle of shedding feathers tumbling over and over
along the hood until it reached the slanting windshield. There it spun
wildly upward, left a cloud of feather's fluttering about Tommy's
head, and fell still squawking into the road behind. By the back-view
mirror, Tommy could see it picking itself up and staggering dizzily
back to the side of the road.

"My point was," said Tommy vexedly to himself, speaking of the article
the telegram referred to, "that a man can only recognize three
dimensions of space and one of time. So that if he got shot out of
this cosmos altogether he wouldn't know the difference. He'd still
seem to be in a three-dimensioned universe. And what is there in that
stuff to get Denham in trouble?"

A house appeared ahead. A low, rambling sort of bungalow with a huge
brick barn behind it. The house of Professor Denham, very certainly,
and that barn was the laboratory in which he made his experiments.

Instinctively, Tommy stepped on the gas. The car leaped ahead. And
then he was braking frantically. A pipe-framed gate with thinner,
unpainted wire mesh filling its surface loomed before him, much too
late for him to stop. There was a minor shock, a crashing and
squeaking, and then a crash and shattering of glass. Tommy bent low as
the top bar of the gate hit his windshield. The double glass cracked
and crumpled and bent, but did not fly to bits. And the car came to a
halt with its wheels intricately entangled in torn-away fence wire.
The gate had been torn from its hinges and was draped rakishly over
the roadster. A tire went flat with a loud hissing noise, and Tommy
Reames swore softly under his breath and got out to inspect the
damage.

* * * * *

He was deciding that nothing irreparable was wrong when a man came
bursting out of the brick building behind the house. A tall, lean,
youngish man who waved his arms emphatically and approached shouting:

"You had no right to come in here! You must go away at once! You have
damaged property! I will tell the Professor! You must pay for the
damage! Y