He had walked into the paleontologist’s office and it had taken him a moment fully to see the man seated toward the back of the room at a cluttered desk. The entire place was cluttered. There were long tables covered with chunks of rock with embedded fossils, Scattered here and there were stacks of papers. The room was large and badly lighted. It was a dingy and depressing place.

“Doctor?” Daniels had asked. “Are you Dr. Thorne?”

The man rose and deposited a pipe in a cluttered ashtray. He was big, burly, with graying hair that had a wild look to it. His face was seamed and weather-beaten. When he moved he shuffled like a bear.

“You must be Daniels,” he said. “Yes, I see you must be. I had you on my calendar for three o’clock. So glad you could come.”

His great paw engulfed Daniel’s hand. He pointed to a chair beside the desk, sat down and retrieved his pipe from the overflowing tray, began packing it from a large canister that stood on the desk.

“Your letter said you wanted to see me about something important,” he said. “But then that’s what they all say. But there must have been something about your letter—an urgency, a sincerity. I haven’t the time, you understand, to see everyone who writes. All of them have found something, you see. What is it, Mr. Daniels, that you have found?”

Daniels said, “Doctor, I don’t quite know how to start what I have to say. Perhaps it would be best to tell you first that something had happened to my brain.”