Astounding Science Fiction (British Edition) — page 71: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BELIEF close of each morning and afternoon session and was the soul of conviviality at the concluding dinner at the end of the week’s work. All this Roger Toomey knew by report. He could now observe the actual workings of the man. Professor Deering was rather under the middle height, was dark of complexion and had a luxuriant and quite distinctive mop of wavy brown hair. His wide, thin-lipped mouth when not engaged in active conversation looked per- petually on the point of a sly smile. He spoke quickly and fluently, with- out notes, and seemed always to deliver his comments from a level of superiority that his listeners auto- matically accepted. At least, so he had been on the first morning of the seminar. It was only during the afternoon session that the listeners began to notice a certain hesitation in his remarks. Even more, there was an uneasiness about him as he sat on the stage during the delivery of the scheduled papers. Occasionally, he glanced furtively toward the rear of the auditorium. Roger Toomey, seated in the very last row, observed all this tensely. His temporary glide toward normality that had begun when he first thought there might be a way out was beginning to recede. On the Pullman to Seattle, he had not slept. He had had visions of him- self lifting upward in time to the wheel-clacking, of moving out quietly past the curtains and into the corridor, of being awakened into endless em- barrassment by the hoarse shouting of a porter. So he had fastened the curtains with safety pins and had achieved nothing by that; no feeling of security; no sleep outside a few exhausting snatches. He had napped in his seat during the day, while the mountains slipped past outside, and arrived in Seattle in the evening with a stiff neck, aching bones, and a general sensation of despair. He had made his decision to attend the seminar far too late to have been able to obtain a room to himself at the Institute’s dormitories. Sharing a room was, of course, quite out of the Comichooksnco Im j