naively surprised at the reaction, obviously has rules of its own." 

 They ruminated in silence for a moment. 

 "It's too easy to talk vaguely about blocks and short circuits, Clancey. How do you account for his completely erratic progress? Totally unpredictable, with alternating periods of complete idiocy and high intelligence?" 

 "Not totally unpredictable." 

 "Oh?" 

 "At least three things suggest a pattern. One is that his relapses, though erratic, are becoming ever shorter in duration and more widely separated." 

 "Yes, they are infrequent now and quickly ended." 

 "The second is that his grasp of the social pattern in which he lives—his environment, in all its subtleties—is constantly improving." 

 "Right again. At the age of six he can in many ways match a bright lad twice his age. Not in the subtleties, though—I disagree there. You can give him a simple or even a not-so-simple explanation of something he hears on the radio, dealing with it as a general theme in sociology, and he seems to grasp the broad outline with little difficulty, but in trivial matters of social behavior and human relations he's frequently uncertain, as likely as not to pull a howling bloomer. Seems unusually baffled and exasperated by some of the social mores he runs into, such as the many tabu subjects for conversation, or taking your clothes off whenever or wherever you feel inclined to. Poor Helen. She tries to explain and he keeps doggedly after her with ruthless logic, obviously trying hard to understand, and ... you know ... it's surprising how few really sound, logical reasons there are for half the accepted conventions that rule our lives. 

 "He's pinned me down several times to the conclusion that a certain convention exists solely because people can't be trusted to behave rationally without restraining rules. It's rather a dismaying conclusion when it's dragged out in the open like that, and it seems to horrify him. An ordinary kid learns by experience and accepts the rules with sporadic rebellion, but our boy acts as if they were beyond comprehension. And I think they are ... to him. 

 "The first crime drama he happened to see on TV turned him white as a sheet, and when he stuck his nose out the 

 Prev. P 9/54 next