over and flicked on the televisor.

He wouldn't be able to hear much, and already knew the general trend of the little man's plan, but to have that belief around which his entire philosophy of life had been built borne out by the man who was himself to restore mankind to the glory that was its heritage, to the ultimate fulfilment of its age-old quest—that, indeed, was worth the hearing.

The image of the little man snapped on the screen with an abruptness that was startling after the long minutes required for the televisor to warm up.

The colors were blurred from the distortion of millions of miles of travel in space, but the ruddy nose of the little man was still prominent.

Above the crashing pound of the rockets, Lawrence heard faintly, "... the psychologists have long known the reason for this soul-decay in man...."

The small room was so Grecian in its simplicity, with its shining marblelike walls, the bench of the same sea-foam white in the corner, and the three tunic-clad men, that the televisor screen set in the wall appeared incongruous and out of place.

"Hear him talk about 'the psychologists'," said Herbert Vaine, with a wave of his slender, beautiful hand toward the little unimpressive man on the screen, "when he knows more about applied psychology than any of us in this room. More than you or I, Stanton, or even Parker there."

He smiled cynically, and his eyebrows climbed an astonishing distance up his dome of a forehead.

Stanton grunted. He was a sour, disillusioned little monkey of a man, and prone, at times, to communicate largely by grunts. But now he spoke. "Be grateful. If it wasn't for that little runt we'd be fighting off a howling mob of neurotics and incipient schizophrenics right now. And not only is he giving us a holiday, he's practically saving the entire race.

"After that speech of his, there's going to be a wave of hysteria that will make the panic over that comet-striking-the-earth hoax way back in 2037, ninety-six years ago, look as innocuous as a Sunday school picnic. And it'll be healthy, it'll be the best that could possibly happen to this jaded civilization of ours, a safety valve for the pent-up emotions of over a hundred years! Lord, I hope he can go through with it—if they're disappointed after this renewal of hope, I dread to think of the reaction."

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