"Of the million who started, you few are left. As must every being who has ever worn or who ever will wear the Lens, each of you has proven repeatedly, to the cold verge of death itself, that he is in every possible respect worthy to wear it. For instance, Kinnison here once had a highly adventurous interview with a lady of Aldebaran II and her friends. He did not know that we knew all about it, but we did." Kinnison's very ears burned scarlet, but the commandant went imperturbably on: "So it was with Voelker and the hypnotist of Karalon; with LaForge and the bentlam eaters; with Flewelling when the Ganymede-Venus thionite smugglers tried to bribe him with ten million in gold." "Good Heavens, commandant!" broke in one outraged youth. "Didn't we do any real work at all?" "Plenty of it; but at the same time each of you underwent enough testing to prove definitely that you could not be cracked. And none of you need be ashamed, for you have passed every test. Those who did not pass them were those who were dropped. "Nor is it any disgrace to have been dismissed from the service before graduation into the patrol. The million who started with you were the pick of the planet, yet we knew in advance that of that selected million scarcely one in ten thousand would measure up in every essential. Therefore, it would be manifestly unfair to stigmatize the rest of them because they were not born with that extra something, that ultimate quality of fiber which does, and of stern necessity _must_, characterize the wearers of the Lens. For that reason not even the man himself knows why he was dismissed, and no one save those who wear the Lens knows why they were selected--and a member of the patrol does not talk. "It is necessary to consider the history and background of the patrol in order to bring out clearly the necessity for such care in the selection of its personnel. You are all familiar with it, but probably very few of you have thought of it in that connection. The patrol is, of course, an outgrowth of the old planetary police systems; and, until its development, law enforcement always lagged behind law violation. Thus, in the old days following the invention of the automobile, State troopers could not cross State lines. Then, when the national police finally took charge, they could not follow the rocket-equipped criminals across national boundaries. * * * * *