"I am too modest!" snappedthe great Haskel van Manderpootz, pacing irritably about thelimited area of his private laboratory, glaring at me the while."That is the trouble. I undervalue my own achievements, andthereby permit petty imitators like Corveille to influence the committeeand win the Morell prize."
"But," I said soothingly, "you've won the Morell physicsaward half a dozen times, professor. They can't very well giveit to you every year."
"Why not, since it is plain that I deserve it?" bristled theprofessor. "Understand, Dixon, that I do not regret my modesty,even though it permits conceited fools like Corveille, who haveinfinitely less reason than I for conceit, to win awards that meannothing save prizes for successful bragging. Bah! To grant anaward for research along such obvious lines that I neglected tomention them, thinking that even a Morell judge would appreciatetheir obviousness! Research on the psychon, eh! Who discoveredthe psychon? Who but van Manderpootz?"
"Wasn't that what you got last year's award for?" I askedconsolingly. "And after all, isn't this modesty, this lack of jealousyon your part, a symbol of greatness of character?"
"True—true!" said the great van Manderpootz, mollified."Had such an affront been committed against a lesser man thanmyself, he would doubtless have entered a bitter complaint againstthe judges. But not I. Anyway, I know from experience thatit wouldn't do any good. And besides, despite his greatness, vanManderpootz is as modest and shrinking as a violet." At thispoint he paused, and his broad red face tried to look violet-like.
I suppressed a smile. I knew the eccentric genius of old,from the days when I had been Dixon Wells, undergraduate studentof engineering, and had taken a course in Newer Physics(that is, in Relativity) under the famous professor. For someunguessable reason, he had taken a fancy to me, and as a result,I had been involved in several of his experiments since graduation.There was the affair of the subjunctivisor, for instance,and also that of the idealizator; in the first of these episodes I hadsuffered the indignity of falling in love with a girl two weeks aftershe was apparently dead, and in the second, the equal or greaterindignity of falling in love with a girl who didn't exist, never hadexisted, and never would exist—in other words, with an ideal.Perhaps I'm a little susceptible to feminine charms, or rather,perhaps I used to be, for since the disaster of the idealizator, Ihave grimly relegated such follies to the past, much to the disgustof various 'vision entertainers, singers, dancers, and the like.
So of late I had been spending my days very seriously, tryingwholeheartedly to get to the office on time just once, so that Icould refer to it next time my father accused me of never gettinganywhere on time. I hadn't succeeded yet, but fortunately theN. J. Wells Corporation was wealthy enough to survive evenwithout the full-time services of Dixon Wells, or should I sayeven with them? Anyway, I'm sure my father preferred to haveme late in the morning after an evening with van Manderpootzthan after one with Tips Alva or Whimsy White, or one of thenumerous others of the ladies of the 'vision screen. Even in thetwenty-first century, he retained a lot of old-fashioned ideas.
Van Manderpootz had ceased to remember that he was asmodest and shrinking as a violet. "It has just occurred to me,"he announced impressively, "that years have