Avon Fantasy Reader No. 10 — page 62: what you’re looking at

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

became acquainted with Professor Stringer, the physicist, whose remarkable achievements in his chosen field (which also covered mathematics) had won him an international reputation. Professor Stringer was not a ‘popular’ scientist, his abstruse and remarkable paper on “The Electronic Flow and Its Relation With Time” being practically unknown to the general public. But among his colleagues he was regarded with great respect for bis actual discoveries in the realm of physics; and even though many of them looked askance at the radical theories advanced in his paper, portions of the paper itself were received as a genuine, if somewhat abstract, contribution to knowledge. | Olson Smith read the paper. How much of it he understood is a moot question. As the secretary of his benefactions I was instrumental in bringing it to his attention. “Here,” I said, “is a chance to do something for pure science.” He was not at first inclined to be interested. “The thing,” he said, “ys moonshine, pure moonshine.” “Perhaps so,” I replied; “but you must remember that the moonshine often precedes the practical science. Consider, sir. . . .”’ He considered; and after die reflection loosened the pursestrings. Professor Stringer graciously allowed himself to be endowed. He was (one sensed) fed up with wasting his genius on unappreciative college stu- dents; and he wanted money, much money, a million dollars he said, to carry out his experiments. But he made it clear that he was honoring Olson Smith by allowing him to donate the money; and strangely enough—for Olson Sroith was a plutocrat convinced of his own weight and importance—the magnate agreed. Whe personality of Professor Stringer—and this dried-up wizenced little scientist in the middle fifties possessed a dynamic personality —carried all before it. Olson Smith turned over to bina his Long Island home, built workshops and laboratories, and then left him to the seclusion and privacy he desired, taking his annual trip to the Bermudas. What with one thing and another we did not see Professor Stringer again until a year. later, when the yacht tied up at the private pier of the Long Island estate and we dined with him. Besides Olson Smith, Professor Stringer and myself, three others were present that night, a middle-aged business man named Gleason, ruddy of face from constant shampooing and good living, a noted surgeon who does not Wish his name or description given here, and Captain Bronson of the steam-yacht. Perhaps I have failed to mention that Captain Bronson was a remarkably handsome man, somewhere under forty, whose medium height and slender figure belied the great physical strength that was really his. He cestainly did not look the two-fisted fighter, the dubious hero of shady exploits, that Olson Smith declared him to be. The multimil- lionaire was scarcely one to make friends of his hired men, be they valets or private secretaries, but between himself and Bronson an undoubted intimacy existed, based, perhaps, on the dual nature of the Captain. Bronson was capable either of fighting or of discussing the merits of a Pulitzer prize win- 60 | comicbooks.com