Dr. Parkman leaned back in his chair and seemed to be in deep thought. "Then the popular idea is all wrong, isn't it?" "I am at a loss to know to what popular idea you refer," said the professor, with a suitable indifference. "Oh merely to the popular idea that this place amounts to something; that it has let go of a little mediaevalism, and is more than a crude, cheap pattern--funny what ideas people get, isn't it? Now there are people who think the university here puts a value on individuality, that it would actually bend a rule or two to fit an individual case, in fact that it likes initiative, encourages originality, wouldn't in the least mind having a few actual achievements to its credit." "At the same time," goaded from his icy calm--"it does not propose to make itself ridiculous!" "And doing a rather unconventional thing, in order to bring about a very great thing, would be making itself ridiculous, would it?" "I fail to see how anything so preposterous could bring about good results," said the man in authority, introducing into that a note of dismissal. "Do you?" replied Parkman, not yet dismissed. "Well, if you will pardon a little more plain speaking, I will say that this is something I know a good deal more about than you do." "We have made other arrangements for the laboratory," and the professor picked up a paper from his desk and looked it over, nice subtilties evidently being lost. "So? Going to give it to some fellow who will devote himself, after the fashion of university men, to verifying other men's conclusions?" Then Dr. Parkman rose. "Well," he said, "you've had your chance. You had a chance to do something which would give this place an excuse for existing. I'm sorry you weren't big enough to take it.