Well, there were business reverses. Due to the reverses, I was forced to miss the next few reunions. But I had a lot of time to think and study, in between times at the farm and the shop where we stamped out license plates for the state. When I got out, I began looking for El Greco. I spent six months at it, and I didn't have any luck at all. El Greco had moved his laboratory and left no forwarding address. But I wanted to find him. I wanted it so badly, I could taste it, because I had begun to have some idea of what he was talking about, and so I kept on looking. I never did find him, though. He found me. He came walking in on me in a shabby little hotel room, and I hardly recognized him, he looked so prosperous and healthy. "You're looking just great, Greek," I said enthusiastically, seeing it was true. The years hadn't added a pound or a wrinkle--just the reverse, in fact. "You're not looking so bad yourself," he said, and gazed at me sharply. "Especially for a man not long out of prison." "Oh." I cleared my throat. "You know about that." "I heard that Pudge Detweiler prosecuted." "I see." I got up and began uncluttering a chair. "Well," I said, "it's certainly good to--How did you find me?" "Detectives. Money buys a lot of help. I've got a lot of money." "Oh." I cleared my throat again. Greco looked at me, nodding thoughtfully to himself. There was one good thing; maybe he knew about my trouble with Pudge, but he also had gone out of his way to find me. So _he_ wanted something out of _me_. He said suddenly, "Virgie, you were a damned fool." "I was," I admitted honestly. "Worse than you know. But I am no longer. Greek, old boy, all this stuff you told me about those demons got me interested. I had plenty of time for reading in prison. You won't find me as ignorant as I was the last time we talked." He laughed sourly. "That's a hot one. Four years of college leave you as ignorant as the day you went in, but a couple years of jail make you an educated man." "Also a reformed one." He said mildly, "Not too reformed, I hope." "Crime doesn't pay--except when it's within the law. That's the chief thing I learned." "Even then it doesn't pay," he said moodily. "Except in money, of course. But what's the use of money?" * * * * * There wasn't anything to say to _that_. I said, probing delicately, "I figured you were loaded. If you can use your demons to separate U-235 from U-238, you can use them for separating gold from sea water. You can use them for damn near anything." "Damn near," he concurred. "Virgie, you may be of some help to me. Obviously you've been reading up on Maxwell." "Obviously." It was the simple truth. I had got a lot of use out of the prison library--even to the point of learning all there was to learn about Clerk Maxwell, one of the greatest of physicists, and his little demons. I had rehearsed it thoroughly for El Greco.