He chuckled. "I thought of that. So I'm going under an assumed name. Your girl said you had something very important to tell me."

"Sure. I want another play," I told him. "Updraft won't run forever, you know."

"Oh, I have plenty of money now, so I won't have to bother. The people at the sanitarium have become interested in my project, and all I'm spending is board and room there. Thanks to your royalty checks I've got quite a pile in the bank."

"Won't have to bother?" I yelled. "Here I launch you on Broadway, and that's all the gratitude I get. Now's the time to cash in on the reputation of your first play. It's setting attendance records."

"Sorry, Mr. Crocker," he said. "I'm in a critical stage of my experiments. I just can't afford the time at the moment."

"Experiments! Experiments! What is this business?"

He brightened. "Would you believe it? I've contacted memories back to three months after my birth. And at this rate I'll reach birth itself within a few weeks."

I shuddered. What a nasty ambition! "What's the percentage?"

"You don't understand," he said warming to his subject. "The further back I go the more nearly I approach total recall. At present I can contact any memory in my experience back to six months, day by day, minute by minute. I can run off these memories like colored movies, recalling every sight, sound, smell, feel and taste."

"So what happened earlier than six months that's so important?"

"Probably nothing of great interest," Hardy granted, "but the further back I go, the more intense is the reality of all my memories. For instance, right now I can return to the day, hour, minute and second I went to school for the first time. I can remember the look on the teacher's face and hear the screams of twenty-six kindergarten kids. I can smell the freshly oiled floors and the newly painted walls. I can feel the wart on my mother's finger, the one I was holding onto for dear life."

The almost fanatic glow in his eager, young face impressed me. Realism of memory! Could that be the essence of his successful first play? Did his down-to-earth touch account for Updraft's surprising audience appeal?

I pleaded, "Don't let me down now, Hillary. I gambled thousands of dollars on your first play. If you can 

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