There was that prickle down my spine again.

Charlie looked dazed. He said, “But I worked it out on scientific principles, Hank. It wasn’t just an accident. I couldn’t be wrong. You mean you think that—It’s utterly silly!”

I’d been thinking just that, again. But differently. “Look,” I said, “let s concede that your apparatus set up a field that had an effect upon the brain, but just for argument let’s assume you misunderstood the nature of the field. Suppose it enabled you to project a thought. And you were thinking about Yehudi; you must have been because you jokingly called it the Yehudi principle, and so Yehudi—”

“That’s silly,” said Charlie.

“Give me a better one.

He went over to the hot plate for another cup of coffee.

And I remembered something then, and went over to the typewriter table. I picked up the story, shuffling the pages as I picked them up so the first page would come out on top, and I started to read.

I heard Charlie’s voice say, “Is it a good story, Hank?” I said, “G-g-g-g-g-g—”

Charlie took a look at my face and sprinted across the room to read over my shoulder. I handed him the first page. The title on it was THE YEHUDI PRINCIPLE.

The story started: