My sense of pity deepened. Surely there can be no worse fate for any man than to accomplish his desires! I thought of all the unknown idealists who had given their lives to the accomplishment of great projects and failed, achieving nothing—inventors, dreamers, a gray, fantasmal legion whose lost hopes ranged back from age to age; and I saw how their works were blessed and their failures glorified in contrast. “Yes, I thought that it must be you as soon as I examined the sheets from the Strangers’ Bureau,” continued Sanson, in his matter-of-fact manner. But it seemed so incredible that the cylinder had erred that I allowed my pressing duties to let me forget my impulse to take immediate action. Unfortunately, while we were fellow-workers I did not take your finger prints, but I had, of course, observed your characteristic indexes, and also, if you remember, you were kind enough to my fad to permit me to take your cranial measurements. I did not think that there could exist two heads like yours, combined with those indexes, within a single century. For your occipital region is excellent, approximating my norm, while your frontal area is that of a moron. In short, you are a typical Grade 2 defective, Arnold—essentially so; and I have no doubt that, thanks to your five centimeters of asymmetrical frontal development, you have emerged into this universe of reality still clinging fondly and affectionately to your dualistic soul theory. “But never mind!” he continued, smiling rather grimly. “I have no intention of handing you over to Lembken’s ridiculous priests to be tried for heresy. There will be no more priests after a little while. The public mind is now ripe enough for the abolition of this stupid compromise of the transition period from God to Matter. One more animist will do little harm in a world in which they are still far from uncommon. And then, I am not a man of cruel impulses, Arnold, and I do not want to penalize you for having come into a world in which you are an anachronism. So you have spent three weeks in London?” he ended, scrutinizing me sharply. “Yes.” “And came back by night to see your birthplace, I suppose,” he said maliciously. “I don’t know how you escaped the battleplanes. Unless they are growing slack.... I found one scoutplane without its searchlight working, and shall send its commander to the leather vats if I discover him ... well, Arnold,” he resumed, “I could not believe that you had come out of your cylinder before your time. You came within an ace of disrupting my work, my world, if you only knew it—you with your missing five centimeters! I put implicit faith in Jurgensen’s mechanism, and, as it proves, I was to blame. I came here tonight to see if you could really be gone.” “You knew that I was here?”