"Very well, very well. I'll see about putting it through. Hm--you say it's quite simple and cheap? Better keep your mouth shut for a while, till the application has been approved. Otherwise everybody will start making it, and you'll have a devil of a time collecting your royalties. A patent is only a license to sue, you know, and you can't sue fifty million bathtub chemists." "Oh," said Arch, taken aback. "I--well, I've told some of my neighbors, of course. One of the local teen-agers is going to make a car powered by--" Addison groaned. "You would! Can't you shoot the boy?" "I don't want to. For a person his age, he's quite inoffensive." "Oh, well, you didn't want a hundred million dollars anyway, did you? I'll try to rush this for you, that may help." Arch went out again, some of the elation taken from him. But what the hell, he reflected. If he could collect on only one percent of all the capacitite which was going to be manufactured, he'd still have an unreasonable amount of money. And he wanted to publish as soon as possible in all events: he had the normal human desire for prestige. He got a hamburger and coffee at a diner and went home. Nothing happened for a month except an interview in the local paper. Bob finished his hot rod and drove it all over town. The boy was a little disappointed at the quietness of the machine, but the interest it attracted was compensation. He began to build another: twenty-five dollars for an old chassis, another twenty-five or so for materials, tack on a hundred for labor and profits--the clunk might not look like much, but it would run for a year without fuel worries and would never need much repair or replacement. He also discovered, more or less clandestinely, that such a car would go up to 200 miles an hour on the straightaway. After selling it, he realized he could command a much bigger price, and set happily to work on another. * * * * * The physics journal to which Arch sent his manuscript was interested enough to rush printing. Between the time he submitted it and the time it came out some five weeks later, he found himself in lively correspondence with the editor. "College will soon be letting out all over the country," said Elizabeth. "Stand by to repel boarders!" "Mmmm ... yes, I suppose so." Arch added up the cost of entertaining a rush of colleagues, but his worry was only a flicker across a somewhat bashful glow of pride. After all--he had done a big thing. His polarization theory cut a deep swath into what mystery remained about the atom. There might even be a Nobel Prize in it. It was on the day of publication that his phone rang. He looked up from his stamps, swore, and lifted it. "Hello?"