"I'll want to hear her accuse me," said Norman. "Soon as possible."

"Of course. I've arranged for a meeting at Mrs. Carr's office. Four o'clock this afternoon. Meantime she's seeing the college physician. That should sober her up."

"Four o'clock," repeated Norman, standing up. "You'll be there?"

"Certainly. I'm sorry about this whole business, Norm. Frankly, I think Mrs. Carr botched it. Got panicky. She's a pretty old lady."

In the outer office he stopped to glance at a small display case of items concerned with Gunnison's work in physical chemistry. The present display was of Prince Rupert drops and other high-tension oddities. It occurred to him that Hempnell was something like a Prince Rupert drop. Hit the main body with a hammer and you only jarred your hand. But flick with a fingernail the delicate filament in which the drop ended, and it would explode in your face.

Fanciful.

He glanced at the other objects, among them a tiny mirror, which, the legend explained, would fly to powder at the slightest scratch or sudden change in temperature.

Yet it wasn't so fanciful, when you got to thinking about it. Any highly organized, complex, somewhat artificial institution, such as a college, tends to develop dangerous weaknesses. And the same would be true of a person or a career. Flick the delicate spot in the mind of a neurotic girl, and she would explode with wild accusations. Or take a saner person, like himself. Suppose someone should be studying him secretly, looking for the vulnerable filament, finger casually poised to flick—

But that was really getting fanciful.

Coming out of their eleven-o'clock classes, Hervey Sawtelle buttonholed him.

Hervey Sawtelle resembled an unfriendly caricature of a college professor. Sometimes he carried two brief cases, and he was usually on his way to a committee meeting. Routine worries chased themselves up and down his nervous face.

But at the moment he was in the grip of one of his petty excitements.

"Say, Norman, the most interesting thing! I was down in the stacks this morning, and I happened to pull out an old doctor's thesis—1930—by someone I never heard of—with the title 'Superstition and Neurosis.'" He produced a bound, typewritten 

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