Actually, Forsythe’s sudden emergence in the already complex problem of Sven Ryan and his matter-transmitter was an element Hamilton had been hoping they could avoid ever since Ian Harris had told him Ryan was at liberty in New York and talking his head off. But, since Forsythe was already here.... Hamilton said, “Let Miss Alderman pour you a cup of coffee. It’s excellent, I can assure you.” “Thank you, I could use one,” said the industrialist, flinging himself in a rollachair that creaked ominously under his by no means inconsiderable weight. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.” “I don’t imagine you did,” said Hamilton, shaking his head faintly at Nancy, who was giving him a shall-I-put-something-in-it? look. “You must have been pretty busy.” “All in the night’s work,” said Forsythe, yawning and extending his legs. His voice, like the rest of him, was big and deep. Charlie Forsythe looked like a gigantic, old-fashioned steel puddler who had come up in the world and was not quite adjusted to its social niceties--a bull in a china shop instead of the expensively-reared son of vast inherited wealth that he actually was. He was a throwback to the industrial-pirate era of the late nineteenth century--human, tough, limited, determined, likeable, and always dangerous. He was, in fact, that most dangerous variety of anarchist--the sort that believes in absolute freedom for himself and stringent regulation for others. He was a dinosaur, a three-decker man of war. He was obsolete but he didn’t know it. All of which, with his strength of personality and immense resources, made him doubly dangerous. The cup of coffee Miss Alderman handed him looked like a child’s piece of doll-house china in his immense hairy hand. Нe drained it at a draught, nodded his thanks, and said, “Well, where’s the boy?” “In there,” said Hamilton, nodding toward the bedroom door. “He’s sleeping it off.” “I’ve got an order here,” said Forsythe patting his breast pocket. “I’ve also got operatives outside. We’re picking up Ryan under the Security Act of nineteen fifty-six.” “You _have_ been busy,” said Hamilton, really worried. “But that Act has been superseded by a whole flock of subsequent legislation.” Forsythe grinned lazily, like a satisfied sabre-tooth tiger. He said, “Maybe--but it’s still on the books. And by the time the courts get through arguing out the pros and cons of it we’ll have all the juice out of the boy.” He glanced at Hamilton, and added significantly, “All of this is on the level, isn’t it? I’d hate to think I’d wasted the entire night for nothing.” Hamilton longed to lie, but knew it would gain him nothing. They’d simply pull Ryan in anyway and find out about his invention for themselves. He said, “It’s on the level, Charley. But the whole thing is so new--so untried. It may take years, even decades.”