Though Dennis had a slight bellyache from too much Orange-dee-lite on opening day, things went more than smoothly. Videosheets had been intrigued by the peculiar nature of the exhibition and had given it a guffawing play-up. The first “show” was at noon. Only a trickle of customers was on hand. But after three more shows, every hour on the hour, admission one dollar per person, the tide began to swell. The procedure was thus: Fred Ajax appeared before the standing spectators, microphone in hand. On one side of him was the crude shack, on the other the electronic brain with its banks of switches and lights, looking malignantly perfect. Aha! exclaimed Ajax, man triumphs over technology! A mere boy et cetera, et cetera, proves that man is not doomed to be subjugated by his own creations, et cetera, et cetera. Then Dennis appeared, herded by Ellsworth Cranch who wore a faded and frayed suit of tails. Cranch himself, an expert on such things, drew up the problem. An official of the company renting the small electronic brain was on hand to verify that it was not fixed in any manner, shape or form. Ajax gave Dennis a ream of paper, several pencils and a copy of the problem, Dennis advanced to the door of the shack. Ajax, melodramatically, fired a blank cartridge pistol into the air and Dennis darted into the shack. The lights on the brain began to wink and flash as the official fed the problem into it. The Sailor put the _Gay Parisienne_ on the phonograph and its frenetic strains dinned through the tent. Strangely enough the suspense became monumental. At the end of thirty-five minutes, when the nerves of the patrons were frayed by the dinning of the can-can music, Dennis burst from the shack, waving a sheet of paper. “I’ve got it!” he cried, having been coached by Ajах. A cheer went up from the crowd. The electronic brain finished the problem in forty-eight minutes. Both Dennis and the brain had the same correct answer. The audience, amazed, was allowed to clap for a bowing Dennis and then was directed out to make room for the next group. And at the end of the day, a triumphant Ajax counted slightly under twenty-five hundred paid admissions. The race of boy versus machine was a success. Certain improvements in the pitch were inevitable. A larger electronic brain was rented to replace the small model. In view of the fact that certain patrons might suspect chicanery, the front wall of the shack was knocked out and replaced with glass during the night so that patrons could watch Dennis seated at a wooden table with his pencil flying over the paper. The shack was painted white and decorated at Sailor’s suggestion by a sign reading, _Quiet! Genius at Work._