Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 46 — page 116: what you’re looking at

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

What would even a professor of Physics do without our Albert? Higher The Mathematics “ by M. C. WOODHOUSE LBERT stood in the little A room behind the lec- ture theatre, watching the sudents file in and take their seats. He took a personal interest in the attendance _ sheet for every lecture given in the Department of Physics, and it gratified him to see that, this morning at any rate, the benches would be filled. He had worked for two hours before breakfast, making sure that today’s demonstration would run without a hitch, and so he listened to the hum and chatter which preceded -the Professor’s entrance with a growing content. The post of Chief Technical Assistant to the Physical Lab- oratory was one that carried grave responsibilities. For, just as a college at a Univer- sity is run, not by the Master or the Senior Tutor, but by Alf, the Head Porter, so the smooth running of a Scientific Department rests in the hands, not of the Professor or his assistants, but of men like Albert and his staff, down to the boy who washes the flasks and test tubes. Lecturers may come, and lecturers may go, but Albert stays on for ever. The lecture was due to start at any moment. Nine o’clock, said the notice on the board outside, and it was nearly ten past now. The daily battle to see which would arrive the later, the lecturer or the last ten of his audience, would soon be decided, and Albert could retire to the laboratory until the end of the lecture. The door at the far end of the room swung open, and the Professor of Physics came in. The front rows of the audience, containing the keener members of his own class, together with those senior members of other de- © partments who had been in- 115 comiclbooks.conrn