Fenwick shook his head slowly and smiled. "You've forgotten the boys working in their basements and in their back yard garages. You've forgotten the guys that persuade the wife to put up with a busted-down automatic washer for another month so they can buy another hundred bucks worth of electronic parts. You've remembered the guys who have Ph. D.'s for writing 890-page dissertations on the Change of Color in the Nubian Daisy after Twilight, but you've forgotten guys like George Durrant, who can make the atoms of a crystal turn handsprings for him." Baker leaned back in his chair and smiled. He almost wished he hadn't wasted the effort of trying to show Fenwick. But, then, he had tried. And he would always have regretted it if he hadn't. "You're referring now to the crackpot fringe?" he said. "I suppose so," said Fenwick. "I've heard it called that before." "One of the things, above all else, which the Index was designed to accomplish," said Baker, "was the screening out of all elements that might be ever so remotely associated with the crackpot fringe. And believe me, you'll never know how strong it is in this country! Every two-bit tinkerer wants a handout to develop his world-shaking gadget that will suppress the fizz after the cap is removed from a pop bottle, or adapt any apartment-size bathtub for raising tropical fish." "You ever heard of the flotation process?" said Fenwick abruptly. Baker frowned at the sudden shift of thought. "Of course--" "What would the world be like without the flotation process?" "The metals industry would be vastly different, of course. Copper would be much scarcer and higher priced. Gold--" "A ton of ore and maybe a pound of recovered metal, right?" said Fenwick. "Move a mountain of waste to get anything of value. Crush millions of tons of rock and float out the pinpoint particles of metal on bubbles of froth." "That's a rough description of what happens." "You've heard of high-grading." "Of course. A somewhat colloquial term used in mining." "The high-grader takes a pick and digs for anything big enough to see and pick up with his hands. He doesn't worry about the small stuff that takes sweat and machinery to recover." "I suppose so. I fail to see the significance--" "You're high-grading, Bill," said Fenwick. He leaned across the desk and spoke with bitter intensity. "You're high-grading and you should be using a flotation process." Fenwick slowly drew back in his chair. Baker felt overwhelmed by the sudden intensity he had never before seen displayed in John Fenwick. Any reaction on his part seemed suddenly inadequate. "I fail to see any connection--," he said finally.