"You claim to be a realist," he said. "Then why don't you admit the facts? This business of scholarship, verification, the painful asymptotic approach to truth--it's dead. It went out with the society of aristocrats. This is a proletarian age." He lit the cigarette. His trained lecture-circuit voice rolled out, urbane, whimsical, with a bare touch of sadness. "He who dances must pay the piper, but he who pays the piper may call the tune. Since the bills today are all being footed by slobs, what do you expect but the onward march of slobbery? One day you'll be fired in the name of government economy. I'll hang on a little longer, because I gauge the current level of oafishness and make each succeeding book conform; but sooner or later it will be too much trouble for the public even to read my swill. Then I'll settle down to live on my investments, and perhaps I can even go back to a little honest scholarship. But not now. First I must survive." Kintyre said slowly, caught up in spite of himself: "Granted, this is the century of the common mind. But what makes you think it will last, even long enough for you to collect on those investments? This is also the so-called atomic age." Owens lifted his shoulders and let them fall again, gracefully. "How do I know I won't be hit by a car tomorrow? One estimates the situation and acts on probabilities." Kintyre leaned forward. "The probabilities are all for the worst," he said. "Anyone who claims a roomful of people, all with grenades and all hating each other, will keep on acting rationally forever, is whistling past the graveyard of a dozen earlier civilizations. But I do believe scholarship--rigorous thinking--will be a survival factor. And afterward it will be one of the things which will make cultural rebuilding worth while. So I won't quit trying. It isn't for nothing." He stood up, not as tall as Owens, but broader and smoothly moving. "Let me therefore have that manuscript back," he finished. His enemy kept a half smile; but as he neared, Kintyre saw how cheeks and forehead began to glisten. The pupils that stared at him widened until they were two wells of dark. "What are you talking about?" said Owens shrilly. "You know bloody damn well what I mean. You took the Book of Witches. Give it back and we'll say no more. Otherwise--" Kintyre was almost upon the writer. Owens backed away, holding up his cigarette like a futile sword. "Look here," he protested. "Look here, now." There came a rap on the door. Owens went limp with relief. "Come in!" he yelled. Kintyre realized bitterly how he had been snared. Owens had thrown out words which he knew the other must stop to answer. It had gained him a few seconds that might well make his victory; Kintyre took him for a physical coward who would not have stood up long even to verbal browbeating. _Or did I actually intend to wring it from him with my hands?_ The thought was so shocking that Kintyre stepped back.