Thornton continued to bang on the door while Professor Hooker wrathfully besought the intruder to depart before he took active measures. There was the cracking of glass. "Oh, damn!" came from inside. Thornton rattled the knob and kicked. Somebody haltingly crossed the room, the key turned, and Prof. Bennie Hooker opened the door. "Well?" he demanded, scowling over his thick spectacles. "Hello, Bennie!" said Thornton, holding out his hand. "Hello, Buck!" returned Hooker. "Come in. I thought it was that confounded Ethiopian." As far as Thornton could see, it was the same old room, only now crammed with books and pamphlets and crowded with tables of instruments. Hooker, clad in sneakers, white ducks, and an undershirt, was smoking a small "T. D." pipe. "Where on earth did you come from?" he inquired good-naturedly. "Washington," answered Thornton, and something told him that this was the real thing--the "goods"--that his journey would be repaid. Hooker waved the "T. D." in a general sort of way toward some broken-down horsehair armchairs and an empty crate. "Sit down, won't you?" he said, as if he had seen his guest only the day before. He looked vaguely about for something that Thornton might smoke, then seated himself on a cluttered bench holding a number of retorts, beside which flamed an oxyacetylene blowpipe. He was a wizened little chap, with scrawny neck and protruding Adam's apple. His long hair gave no evidence of the use of the comb, and his hands were the hands of Esau. He had an alertness that suggested a robin, but at the same time gave the impression that he looked through things rather than at them. On the mantel was a saucer containing the fast oxidizing cores of several apples and a half-eaten box of oatmeal biscuits. "My Lord! This is an untidy hole! No more order than when you were an undergrad!" exclaimed Thornton, looking about him in amused horror. "Order?" returned Bennie indignantly. "Everything's in perfect order! This chair is filled with the letters I _have_ already answered; this chair with the letters I've _not_ answered; and this chair with the letters I shall _never_ answer!" Thornton took a seat on the crate, laughing. It was the same old Bennie! "You're an incorrigible!" he sighed despairingly. "Well, you're a star gazer, aren't you?" inquired Hooker, relighting his pipe. "Some one told me so--I forget who. You must have a lot of interesting problems. They tell me that new planet of yours is full of uranium." Thornton laughed. "You mustn't believe all that you read in the papers. What are you working at particularly?" "Oh, radium and thermic induction mostly," answered Hooker. "And when I want a rest I take a crack at the fourth dimension--spacial curvature's my hobby. But I'm always working at radio stuff. That's where the big things are going to be pulled off, you know."