Page:Beyond Fantasy Fiction Volume 1 Issue 1 (1953-07).djvu/78

 of a preference for people over protons. I didn’t mention it.

“Science,” I mused, hoping to make him as sore as I was, “is mostly modern superstition.”

As I hoped, he got angry. “You're trying to defend superstitions, aren’t you, Wyser?” He had dropped the Mister. He wasn’t being polite any more.

“No,” I said. “I just don’t believe in a lot of the guff that the gentlemen in the stained laboratory smocks hand out. Just wait and a few years later they’ll come up with entirely new explanations for the same phenomena. I’d just as soon slaughter the sacred cow as have it eat me out of house and home, Arnold. Or have it finish me off with an H-bomb dropped ten miles away.”

“I’ll bet,” he said slowly, “that you can’t find one superstition that has a more plausible explanation for a phenomenon than science does.”

“All right,” I said belligerently. “It’s a bet. What do you want to put up? A set of encyclopedias?” “No,” he said. “Ten thousand dollars.”

My face showed what I thought. “Oh, I don’t mean I would put up the money myself. The university would be willing to pay you that much. You and I could, say, put up a dollar apiece.”

I let the sweat drip off my chin into my iced coffee. Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money. And like most money that’s mentioned in large sums, it seemed like it wouldn’t be too hard to get.

Suddenly the whole situation struck me funny. I had been badgered into interviewing Arnold against my will and because of the heat and the late hour I was taking my anger out on him and being nasty about it.

I started to laugh. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I meant this to be an interview and so far all it’s been is an argument. Let’s start all over.”

He laughed and agreed and I went ahead with the straight interview. A few minutes later I paid the check and we went our separate ways.

ELL, that was the last I ever saw of Arnold. Hein was happy about the publicity and the interview and I was naturally happy that Hein was happy. The particular column I had written about Arnold got lost in the welter of yesterday’s columns and I gradually forgot about him.

I didn’t forget him all at once, though. Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money to forget. I checked with the university and it was a genuine offer. Ten grand for anybody who could dig up a superstition that offered a more reasonable explanation for a phenomenon than science did.

Ten grand is hard to ignore and 76