-
-
Bob was proposing to Dorothy Gallon. It was not
the first time that he had proposed to Dorothy.
To be exact, it was the eleventh. He was using
the cool, calm, reasoning method: The first
five times
-
-
Bob had proposed, he hadn’t used any
“method” at all. Then, seeing that he was
getting nowhere, he decided to put a little
psychology into his attempts, and so his sixth
proposal had been the romantic, passionate,
moving-picture type. That hadn’t worked so well,
so number seven was the “caveman” type. That
was a fiasco.
-
-
Then in quick
succession had come the careless, man-about-town
style, the love-me-or-I-die type and the warning
type. And now—this.
-
-
But Dorothy remained
firm in her resistance. It was almost as if she
really didn’t want to marry Bob Decker. But the
cold, calm, reasoning method demanded
persistence, and so Bob Decker was persisting.
-
-
“You know, Dorothy,” he was
saying. “There’s more to life than just
romance. We must think of the future, of the
days that lie ahead. Just think how convenient
it would be, if we were married. Already I’m
your father’s assistant, and I could come and
live at your house and work in the lab— And you
could keep on being your father’s housekeeper,
just like you are now—”
-
-
Dorothy interrupted
him.
-
-
“Bob Decker, this is
the most miserable proposal you’ve ever made.
As if I’d keep on living with father after I’m
married. He doesn’t need me and you know it.
With all his money, he could hire a whole house
full of housekeepers. And as far as convenience
for you is concerned— Well, it just goes to show
how much romance there is in your make-up. You
never think of poor little me. All you think of
is how nice it would be for you.
-
-
“But I think of
love and marriage in a lot different way than
you do. I want a bold, strong, masterful man. I
want a hero. Someone who can pick me up and
carry me off over the hill to the land of dreams
where a castle and servants await me— And I just
can’t imagine you even picking me up.” She
glanced at Bob’s slight form in a sort of
contempt.
-
-
“No, Bob,” she went
on, a softer tone creeping into her voice. “I
like you well enough, but I couldn’t see you as
a husband. As far as I’m concerned, you’re still
just the little man who works for father.”
-
-
As they were speaking,
they had been walking along the street on the
way from a movie-house, and now they had reached
Dorothy’s home. Bob was expected to supper, and
he had a strong suspicion that Professor Gallon
was going to ask him to do a little overtime
work in the lab. It was customary. Professor
Gallon never hesitated to ask Bob to work
overtime when he needed him, and Bob, who nursed
his job because of Dorothy, seldom refused to
work, when asked.
-
-
Sure enough, after
supper, the crusty old professor’s mouth cracked
into an experimental smile as he suggested that
Bob and he repair to the laboratory. With hardly
a nod of agreement, Bob followed him down to the
cellar and donned a smock. Professor Gallon
turned his attention to his “machine.”
-
-
This “machine” (and
that was all Bob ever heard it called) was a
huge complicated thing that had something to do
with dimensions. Professor Gallon had a theory
that the arrangement of the carbon atoms in the
molecules of the benzene series was due to their
placement in a four dimensional structure. After
long study, he was convinced that important
discoveries in multi-dimensional theory might be
made by a careful arrangement of the benzene
molecule. Hence this machine.
-
-
And hence his keeping Bob working
overtime, this Saturday night. For the machine
was finished at last, and Gallon was so excited
to see if it would work as he had planned it
that he almost forgot his usual testiness.
Once, Bob could have sworn he even saw a pleased
smile pass over Gallon’s features, but this was
probably merely a trick of the lights in the
room. And then the professor reached for a big
switch and shoved it home.
-
-
Bob expected some remarkable phenomenon
and squinted his eyes and half raised his hands
to his ears. But nothing happened. Professor
Gallon scowled. He studied the wiring on the
top of the machine. He went around behind and
opened up the apparatus and peered into it for a
long while. Then he came around from behind it
and scowled at Bob over his glasses.
-
-
“Have-you-been-monkeying-with-that-machine?” he
asked, firing the words at Bob like shots from
an automatic.
-
-
Bob started to quail, decided not to, and
answered truthfully.
-
-
“I haven’t touched that machine since it
was built,” he said. “You’ve done all the work
on it.”
-
-
“‘s dern funny,” complained the professor,
and mumbling further comments under his breath,
he returned to the back of the machine.
Presently he gave a pleased ejaculation and
seized two wires which dangled loosely in their
places. He seized them up and fastened them to
two binding posts nearby.
-
-
But Professor Gallon made a mistake. He
connected those wires to the wrong posts and
then, never noticing it, came around and threw
on the switch again.
-
-
This time there were results. A light
began to glow from somewhere in the interior of
the machine and a high-pitched whine was heard,
a whine that grew higher and higher until at
last the sound grew too high to be heard by
human ears. Then Professor Gallon picked up a
tuning fork and a small metal mallet.
-
-
“Watch carefully, now, Bob,” he said
tensely. “If this thing works at all, it’ll work
when I strike this fork.”
-
-
He hesitated a moment and then struck the
tuning fork with the mallet.
-
-
Pwoong! That sound had never come from the
tuning fork! It was a tremendous sound, a sound
as though someone had plucked the lowest string
on an immense bass viol! And there was a flash
of light, too, a flash so brilliant that for a
moment, Bob was unable to see. As his eyes
readjusted themselves, the assistant of
Professor Hezekiah Gallon found himself unable
to believe them.
-
-
For a huge maw had developed in the
machine, an immense black void that seemed
almost solid in its blackness; and it was
calmly devouring the professor, swallowing him
whole, in fact. Yes, there went his coat, his
trousers, his socks, last of all, his shoes,
heels first Professor Hezekiah Gallon was gone!
-
-
Or... was he?
-
-
An image was forming above the machine. An
incredible image, that seemed at first to be
made of haze or smoke, but that thickened
rapidly and assumed solidity. It was Professor
Gallon, all right, or his living double. The
creature was certainly alive, and it certainly
looked like Hezekiah Gallon. But Professor
Gallon had been clad in a neat, pinstriped
suit, he had had his usual mean, crabbed look on
his face, and he had had nothing in his hands
save a tuning fork and a mallet.
-
-
While this utterly impossible creature,
seated cross-legged in his great lotus carved
from a single ruby, wore a most beatific
expression on his countenance, and, clad nattily
in an old-style, striped convict’s suit, he held
in one hand a crowbar, and in the other an
Easter lily!
-
-
At about the time Bob Decker and Professor
Gallon entered the laboratory, a young man a few
blocks away was seating himself at a typewriter.
Andrew Montieth, his name was, and he was
hungry. Of course, just being hungry wasn’t so
bad; he was hungry most of the time, these days.
What made it bad was the chance, or rather the
certitude that he was going to be much hungrier.
-
-
For when one still has ideals at
thirty-five, one is an incurable idealist. And
incurable idealists do not accept charity, nor
do they work on the W. P. A. If they are
inclined to literature, they write, as Andrew
Montieth did, and spend foolishly for typewriter
paper the money that they should have spent for
food. And when they might be writing
advertising copy profitably, they pass up the
chance in order to write the Great American
Novel.
-
-
So Montieth remained hungry. And took it
philosophically, even with a sort of a smile.
The smile was for posterity, for Montieth had a.
Great Idea. Yes, beyond a shadow of a doubt, he
had completed the plot, and all the details, of
what was certain to be the novel of the century.
-
If Montieth lived to write it.
-
-
For, quite plainly, he was really
starving. And, being Andrew Montieth, he
thought not at all of himself, but only of his
novel. Could he possibly live to finish it?
Would a publisher be found soon enough, who
would consider its obvious merits? Would he be
able to get an advance check?
-
Montieth inserted a sheet of paper listlessly,
and typed the title of the story. He paused for
a moment and wrote his name. And paused again.
-
-
Pwoong! From the distance had come a sound
like the twanging of a string on a bass viol.
What was it, the doorbell?
-
-
Yes, there it was again. No mistaking it
this time, it was tile doorbell. With a scowl
at the almost inevitable interruption, Montieth
rose and went to the door. A messenger stood
there, with an envelope and a package. Montieth
wondered what they were, signed for them and
brought them back into the room.
-
-
He wondered idly which he should open
first, then shook off his lassitude and tore
open the envelope. A letter fell out, and a
check. He glanced at the check and then gasped.
It was for two thousand dollars! Hastily he read
the letter, mounting panic sweeping over the joy
at his good fortune. With trembling hands he
tore the cover off the package.
-
-
It was a book. Publishers, Keith & Wright.
Author, Andrew Montieth! He turned hastily to
the contents page. There was no longer any
doubt. Andrew Montieth slumped to the floor in a
faint.
He had collected advance royalties on his great
book, the book he had just sat down to write!
-
-
Down the street, past the home of
Professor Gallon, Mr. Ezekiel Morgenstern was
walking. Mr. Morgenstern was irritated. He had
had to take the afternoon off, and business was
in no condition to take an afternoon off.
-
-
Indeed, business was never in such
condition that he could take the afternoon off.
Look what had happened the time he had that
spell of acute indigestion. Two days off, and
Mannheim had lost the Hildering account. And
momma had gotten her budget mixed up because he
was too sick to help her with it, as he did
every night; and there were still two dollars
unaccounted for.
-
-
So now he worried, wondering what should
happen at the office while he was gone. Of
course, it was worth taking the afternoon off to
bid Uncle Ben goodbye. It would he worth a lot
more than that to get on the good side of Uncle
Ben. For Uncle Ben was rich beyond the dreams of
avarice. And this visit had definitely impressed
him with the integrity and good business sense
of his niece’s husband.
-
-
So when his ignorance of the city gave him
reason to insist that Mr. Morgenstern accompany
him to the depot when he left, Mr. Morgenstern
had sighed and done his best to arrange things
so that he could be away from the office for
that one afternoon.
-
-
He was walking down the street now, in the
direction of his home, where Uncle Ben awaited
him. And someone was calling him. He looked
around, and that someone was coming down the
street, waving his hands. Mr. Morgenstern waved
back and peered through his glasses until the
uncertain form resolved itself into Mannheim,
his office assistant. Mannheim was. panting.
-
-
“Mr. Morgenstern—uh—down at the office —
uh — uh — Hildering is there! He is asking—uh—to
see you!”
-
-
Hildering! That big account that Mannheim
had lost for them last year. If he was asking to
see Mr. Morgenstern, it meant that there was a
chance that they might get that account back,
after all. Only—
-
-
Leib’ Gott im Himmet! Who would take
care of Uncle Ben?
-
-
What a predicament to be in. Two jobs to
take care of, each equally important, each
equally unavoidable. Before he had thought for a
minute, Mr. Morgenstern found it necessary to
clap both hands to his head. Hastily, he
explained to Mannheim, his head spinning more
and more as he detailed his dilemma.
-
-
Pwoong!
-
-
Mr. Morgenstern heard the sound, but found
no time to speculate about
it. Sounds should bother him now, with all these
real troubles. He groaned and tried to reason a
way out of his problem. No chance. He groaned
again.
-
-
“One of ‘em is got to lose,” he decided,
woefully. “I can’t tend to everything. I can’t
be in two places at once, can I, Mannheim? It’s
impossible; I should be in two places at once.”
-
He suddenly realized that he felt very strange.
He was standing still, but his legs felt as if
they were walking. He was facing down the
street, but he could see very clearly what was
going on up the street, behind his back.
-
-
A man was walking toward him. Coming up
the street. A man who was familiar, whom he was
certain that he knew. He started forward walking
down to meet him—and then suddenly he realized
who the man was.
-
-
Briefly, it was Mr. Morgenstern.
-
-
The street was quite unchanged, the world
was the same old world, he was still walking
down the street—but he was also walking up the
street, to meet himself. And curiously enough,
his mind occupied the bodies of both the Mr.
Morgenstern’s, and saw everything through the
two pairs of eyes.
-
-
Mr. Morgenstern had achieved what he had
just spoken of as impossible. He was in two
places at once.
-
-
Billy the heist had seen better days. A darned
sight better. He. could remember, a few years
back, when a guy could go out with a rod and
have a century or two before he’d contacted more
than three people. And in those days, as soon as
you flashed your rod, they heisted and came
across. Nowadays, it was different. Plenty
different. These hard times made it tough to get
enough to live unless a fellow worked regular
hours every night. Might as well be honest as do
that.
-
-
So Billy the Heist no longer confined
himself strictly to hold-ups. This job he was on
now, for instance. A “case” had slipped him the
dope on a house where the owners were sure to be
out on a certain evening, and where large
quantities of real silver were to be found, to
say nothing of jewels, maybe. Billy the Heist
had taken the job; and here he was, on a common
burglary lay, a run of the mine breaking and
entering job.
-
-
The silver was all in the cheap suitcase
which he had brought especially to carry it. He
switched off his flashlight and rose from the
floor. He stepped into the reception hail.
-
-
Pwoong!
-
-
Billy’s heart leaped into his mouth. What
was that? Sounded like—like somebody had rung a
bell. Was there someone in this house after all?
Billy turned and sped.
-
-
On soundless toes, he
ran down the hail, flung open the door and
dashed out on the porch. There was a flight of
three or four steps that ran from the porch to
the small lawn, and Billy took them two at a
time. After the first step, he noticed something
impossible.
-
-
Across the street, the
houses stood, just as they always had. On this
side, to left and right, nothing was changed.
But—there was no street.
-
-
Just that! There
was a place for the street to be, all right, but
in place of the street was an awful void.
Emptiness stretched away horribly, and far, far
down in that emptiness winked the stars of the
southern hemisphere!
-
-
Billy the Heist wanted
to shrink back from that awful void, wanted to
flee back into the house and lie on the floor
and hold onto things and cry.
-
-
But the impetus of his
exit was too much, and with a cry of mortal
fear, he tumbled over the last step; and, like a
character out of Dunsany, fell screaming toward
the unconcerned stars.
-
-
He was late again. He sat in
the street car and fidgeted, and wished he could
make the car go faster. He searched the street
for a clock as he rode along, and every time he
saw one, his panic mounted higher, and his
nervousness increased. Lord, didn’t time fly by
when you wanted it to go slow?
-
-
He wondered if Old Man Pickering would
be down at the office when he got there. He
hoped not.
-
-
He’d be there, though. Never knew it to
fail; when he was late, that was always the
morning Old Man Pickering chose to be early.
Joe had already been caught twice before, and
last time the old man had been pretty sore.
-
-
Gosh, suppose he lost
his job! He simply must break himself of
this infernal habit of being late. If he got by
this time, he’d make mighty sure that he was
never late again.
-
-
He rang the bell for his stop and, leaping
from the car, literally flew up the street.
He was panting as he swept through the outer
office and flung his hat and coat at the rack.
He missed Clara’s cheery “hello” and Mike’s bass
bellow at once. He looked around, but
there they were, seated at their desks as
always. They had rather strange looks on
their faces, and they replied weakly as he
forced out the usual morning salutation. Joe
felt a chill go down his back. Something was up,
all right
-
-
Jimmy, the office boy, popped in from the
hallway, and...
-
-
“The old man wants to see you, Joe,” he
said. “He’s been waiting for fifteen minutes.
He’s madder than a hatter. Gosh , I’m sorry for
you, Joe,” he ended, commiseratingly.
-
-
Joe began to tremble. Inside, like.
He didn’t shake, but it seemed impossible that
the others wouldn’t notice it. He felt like he
was getting red in the face, too. But he smiled
as scornfully as possible at Jimmy’s
commiseration and strode — boldly, apparently —
into Old Man Pickering’s office.
-
-
The Old Man was busy. He would be, of
course. That was to make Joe wait, and get him
more rattled. Old Man Pickering would have been
busy, right then, if there hadn’t been a thing
on his desk. He’d have painted the walls, but
what he’d have made Joe wait.
-
-
So Joe waited. And got more fidgety, just
like the Old Man wanted him to. And at last, the
boss looked up and peered at Joe over his
glasses.
-
-
“Oh, it’s Metzger,” he grunted. “What do
you want?”
-
-
“You sent for me, sir. Jimmy said you
wanted to see me.”
-
-
“Wanted to see you? What for— Oh, yes, I
did want to see you. Want to have a little talk
with you.”
-
-
He took off his glasses, wiped them very
deliberately and put them back on. He peered at
Joe like an entomologist examining a bug.
-
-
“You’ve been late pretty often, here
lately, Metzger,” he snorted. “I’m afraid
‘you’re running it into the ground. And,
personally, I’m getting sick and tired of it.”
-
-
He cleared his throat and settled down to
tell Joe just what he thought. Joe knew he was
in for a long siege of windiness, and so he
settled down, too, to weather the storm as well
as he could.
-
-
Old Man Pickering wandered on and on; and
Joe shifted from one foot to another,
occasionally answering, as well as he could, the
questions that the Old Man fired at him. He was
thinking only one thing — was this tirade going
to end in a discharge or wasn’t it? He wished
the Old Man would finish and end his
uncertainty.
-
-
Old Man Pickering was summing up. Joe,
long familiar with the boss’s peculiarities,
recognized the symptoms. He began to pay a
little more attention.
-
-
“The trouble with you youngsters is that
you got too many other things on your mind,” the
boss was saying. “You’ve got to forget all these
distractions and concentrate your mind on your
work, instead of forgetting it the minute you
leave the office.”
-
-
Somewhere beyond the door, Joe heard a
peculiar sound. It was a sound that had no place
in this office, a “pwoong,” as if someone had
plucked the string of a bass viol. He gave it
but slight attention, however, for Pickering
would be reading him his fate in just a minute,
now. And Pickering ignored it, too, and went on
with his speech.
-
-
“If you ever want to make a success of
yourself, young man, you’ve got to forget
outside interests. You’ve got to forget women
and clothes and automobiles; and throw yourself
into your work. Like this!“
-
-
Old Man Pickering stood up. He carefully
arranged the letters and papers on his desk. He
backed away to the far end of the office, took a
running jump — and quite literally threw himself
into his work!
-
-
The papers fluttered
up into the air, scattered, and came down over
his disappearing body like falling leaves. Where
they touched him, they seemed to suck him up,
like blotters suck up ink. In a moment, the boss
was quite absorbed in his work, and there was no
sign of him left at all.
-
-
And that was the last
anybody ever saw of Old Man Pickering!
-
-
Bob Decker gaped
speechless for all of a minute. Then he reached
out and touched the ruby lotus bowl in which the
astounding professor sat. It seemed solid
enough, in spite of the fact that it hung,
without support, a good foot above the machine.
A little emboldened by the fact that this was
evidently no spirit, Bob finally spoke.
-
-
“Are you—are you
Professor Gallon?“
-
-
The beaming figure
beamed, if possible, even more.
-
-
“Eh?” it shouted
suddenly.
-
-
Bob started back. “I—I
said, are you Professor Gallon. Professor
Hezekiah Gallon?”
-
-
“Hezekiah?“ The
professor’s double cackled merrily. “Hezekiah!
Of all the silly names. No, indeed, young man.
I’m not your Hezekiah. Though I may possibly be
a projection of him. But my name is Gallows,
Hoopdeowdow Gallows In fact, Professor
Hoopdeowdow Gallows.”
-
-
Bob was taken aback.
-
-
“Gallows?“ he
stammered. “Not Gallon?“
-
-
“Indeed, no. Gallows,
I said.
-
-
G-A-L-L-O-W-S. You know, Gallows, like you
hang yourself on?“
-
-
“Like you—hang
yourself on?”
-
-
“Sure, you know, when
you go on picnics.”
-
-
Bob gasped again. If
this were Professor Gallon, he was apparently
was insane. But the incredible “Professor
Gallon, then whoever it was, was insane. But the
incredible "Professor Gallows,” unaware of Bob’s
astonishment, was speaking again.
-
-
“I fear an explanation
is due you regarding my sudden appearance. I
don’t doubt, you’ve worried considerable about
it during the last few years. But it has a very
rational explanation, I assure you.”
-
-
Bob was not interested
in explanations, rational or otherwise. He
didn’t even care to comment on the amazing use
of the word “years.”
-
-
”If you’re not Professor Gallon, then where is
he?“ he demanded. “And can you make him come
back?”
-
-
“Oh, he’ll be back, I expect, as soon as I
release the warp. He’s probably wandering
around in some impossible world or other.”
-
-
"Well,
release that damn ‘warp’ then, and bring him
back.”
-
-
“Oh, no. I couldn’t do
that.” The creature was shocked. “I’ve had
trouble enough getting here to ever think of
Leaving so soon. You see, it was utterly
impossible for me to ever get here in the first
place. So that’s how I was able to do it. But
now that I’ve done it once, it’s possible to do
It again. So I don’t suppose I'll ever be able
to accomplish the feat.”
-
-
Bob was no longer
amazed. He was angry.
-
-
"I don’t know what you’re
talking about,” he said, hotly. “It sounds like
so much gibberish to me. It sounds like so much
‘Alice in Wonderland’.”
-
-
“Oh, but it’s sound
science. Sound science. Let me explain.”
-
-
With a bound, the double of Hezekiah
Gallon leaped from his lotus cup to the floor.
He made no attempt at balance, he just threw
himself out of the ruby and spread-eagled on the
hardwood. The crowbar and Easter lily flew from
his hands and slid up against the opposite wall
of the room. The creature picked himself up and
looked ruefully at Bob.
-
-
“What a worl!" he muttered. “What an
incredible worl!"
-
-
He picked up his crowbar and lily and
laid them on the table. Then he turned, all
smiles again, to Bob.
-
-
“Look here,” he said. “Do you know
anything about dimension?"
-
-
“Quite a little,” admitted Bob, deciding
to abandon, temporarily, at least, any attempt
to get news of Professor Gallon.
-
-
“Very well then, listen carefully.”
-
-
The little man assumed the air of a
teacher lecturing his class.
-
-
“Here we have three dimensions. Length,
width, and thickness, if you call them by the
same name we do. And, whether you know it or
not, there is a fourth dimension. It’s called
time!”
-
-
He looked at Bob as if Bob should be
astounded, but the young fellow only nodded
impatiently.
-
-
“Oh, you understand that, eh? Very well,
it makes my explanation that much easier. Do you
know about the fifth dimension, too? The
dimension of probabilities?“
-
-
Bob thought for a while.
-
-
“I’ve read speculations about it in
stories,” he said. “But I never thought it was
taken seriously by scientists.”
-
-
“Oh, but it should be! It’s really a fact!
Extending sidewise in time, at right angles to
each timeline of the space-time series of
universes is a fifth dimension, in which lie the
planes of all the realms of possibility—the
worlds of ‘if,’ I might say, or the branches of
time.”
-
-
“And you’ve come across that fifth
dimension from some other possible world?“ asked
Bob.
-
The thing that called itself Professor Gallows
snorted.
-
-
“Do I look possible to you? No more, I’ll
bet, than you look to me. No, I have come across
the sixth dimension!”
-
-
“The sixth dimension!“
-
-
“Quite so. The sixth dimension is at right
angles to all the others and embraces, in its
infinity, all the events that couldn’t possibly
happen in any universe of probability. In short,
as the fifth dimension is the dimension of
probability, the sixth is the dimension of
improbability. See?”
-
-
“No !“ said Bob Decker, bluntly. “I get
you all right, but I don’t believe it. Even if
there was a sixth dimension, it would be
impossible for any one to cross it.”
-
-
“Quite so.” The professor was insufferably
smug. “And its very impossibility made it
inevitable, somewhere in the immensity of the
dimension of impossibility. It just happens
that this is the spot where that impossible
event takes place.”
-
-
He paused, reached into his pocket, took
out a long, black cigar and calmly began to eat
it. He went on:
-
-
“I am surprised, though, at one thing. How
did your Professor Gallon ever manage to create
that receiver, if he didn’t know about the sixth
dimension ?“ He pointed to Hezekiah’s “machine”
and Bob looked at it, puzzled.
-
-
“That’s not a receiver, it’s a—a—I don’t
know what it is, but if it works as a sixth
dimensional receiver, it’s due to an accident.”
-
-
“My. My.” The stranger was pleased. “Such
an accident would have been quite impossible in
my world.”
-
-
He approached the machine and looked at it
with a new interest. Presently, he frowned.
“Crude,” he said. “Crude, but effective.” He
studied it again for a while and smiled rather
patronizingly. “I imagine the warp at this end
is not as tight as it ought to be,” he said. “I
wouldn’t be surprised if a number of
impossible events might happen around here,
soon. Although the spatial and temporal warps
may not tally. Still...”
-
-
He turned away from the machine and faced
Bob.
-
-
“And now, if I may, I would like to
question you, a little bit, about the conditions
here in your world. Do you know much about—let’s
see—astronomy? I guess we’d better start with
astronomy.”
-
-
Bob Decker was just about to answer when
he heard a sharp crackling from somewhere in
the room. The impossible Professor Gallows paled
and cried, “Oh, the warp!" and rushed to his
lotus cup. He almost reached it when: “Pwoong!”
went that viol string again, and lotus cup,
professor and all faded away like a dream. Out
of the machine flew a bundle of clothes which
fell in a heap on the floor, unwound themselves,
and stood up. Unhurt, but amazed, It was
professor Gallon.
-
-
The real Professor Gallon, this time,
pinstripe, crabbed look and all. But there was a
cowed touch to the crabbed look, and the
pinstripe was a ruin. He looked dazedly around
for a moment and then fled to Bob for
protection.
-
-
“Hold me, Bob, hold me!“ he cried. Don’t
let me get back in there. I’ve been through
hell, during this last week. But I’m back now.
Thank God, I’m back !“
-
-
Bob made no attempt to comment on that
“last week.” It was on a par with the
other one’s “last few years.” Professor Gallon
seized Bob’s hand, and it looked for a minute as
if he was going to kiss him.
-
-
But it wasn’t the professor that kissed
him.
-
-
Through the door sped a feminine form that
flung herself on Bob’s shoulder and smothered
him with kisses. It was Dorothy, and she was
sobbing with joy and relief.
-
-
“My hero!“ she cried, like a heroine in an
old time melodrama. “Oh what would I ever have
done without you?”
-
-
More kisses and then she turned to her
father.
-
-
“Oh, Daddy, Bob was wonderful. So
masterful, so daring! Where would I have been
now, do you suppose, if he hadn’t rescued me
from those little green men with whips?"