_So that six months later Blackburn and Shaheen got into a violent argument in the office of the university president, Dr. Freylinghuysen, the two mathematical-physicists completely unable to agree on the color of a girl's dress, a girl they'd not only never seen in their lives before ten that morning, but one who subsequently leveled charges of assault and malicious mischief and attempted rape at the university along with a civil suit for $50,000. Although it had to be said in Pendelton's defense that it wasn't his fault. It was Chaplain Rowan who sprinted across Voltaire Mall and attempted to strip Miss Ethel Chattinger, purely in the interest of science of course but the young lady couldn't quite see it that way, especially since Rowan, the university chaplain, had gotten away with quite a swatch, a large jagged piece of knit woolen dress which he later on triumphantly deposited on Dr. Freylinghuysen's desk, only to find that he hadn't really proved anything at all other than that perhaps Miss Chattinger--otherwise known as the either/or proposition--was not a quick change artist and the Humanities department's 35-year-old prodigy of an air conditioner repairman Leopold Pendelton wasn't a practical joker._ * * * * * "The first thing," Pendelton said that first day, "is for you to forget about paradox. Paradox _has nothing to do with time travel_. _Nothing._ It's a monkeying around with words for purposes of profit and it has no place in the office of two experimental physicists. Anyone who answers an honest question with a paradox is a guaranteed shifty character and the chances are he's writing on the sly." Preoccupied with not sounding obnoxious, Pendelton missed Blackburn's ostentatiously bored expression, didn't notice the enormous sarcastic attention that Shaheen was giving him. Instead, he remarked: "Feel free to interrupt me with questions. I want to finish off paradox so we can get on to the Great Implication. Will that be a satisfactory procedure?" He hovered over the desks staring at them with big eyes until they slowly nodded their heads up and down.