"Come along, doctor; I'll show you to your office." Taggert's face betrayed nothing of the enjoyment he was getting out of watching the mental gymnastics of the two. Forsythe and Mrs. Jesser were similar in some ways, but, of the two, Mrs. Jesser was actually the more honest. She only fooled herself; she never tried to fool anyone else. Forsythe, on the other hand, tried to put on a front for others, and, in doing so, had managed to delude himself pretty thoroughly.

Taggert's humor was not malicious; he was not laughing at them. He was admiring the skill of the human mind in tying itself in knots. When one watches a clever contortionist going through his paces, one doesn't laugh at the contortionist; one admires and enjoys the weird twists he can get himself into. And, like Taggert, one can only feel sympathy for one whose knots have become so devious and intricate that he can never extricate himself.

"Just follow me up the stairs," Taggert said. "I'll show you where your office is. Sorry we don't have an elevator, but this old building just wasn't built for it, and we've never had any real need for one."

"Perfectly all right," Forsythe said, following along behind.

Three weeks!

Taggert had to assume that the minimum time prediction was the accurate one. Damn! Why couldn't this last prediction have been as precise as the one about the air flight from Puerto Rico?

It had taken six days for the "accredited" agents of the S.M.M.R. to persuade Dr. Peter Forsythe that he should leave his little place on the Boardwalk and come down to Arlington to work. It isn't easy to persuade a man to leave a business that he's built up over a long period of years, especially during the busy season. To leave the Boardwalk during the summer would, as far as Forsythe was concerned, be tantamount to economic suicide. He had to be offered not only an income better than the one he was making, but better security as well. At fifty-four, one does not lightly throw over the work of a lifetime.

Still, he had plenty of safeguards. The rent was paid on his Boardwalk office, he had a guaranteed salary while he was working, and a "research bonus," designed to keep him working until the Society was finished with that phase of its work.

It's rather difficult for a man to resist the salesmanship of a telepath who knows exactly what his customer wants and, better, what he needs.

On the fourth floor, 

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