"My God, man! You are crazy!" he cried, horrified.
The period-bell was ringing as he left Whitburn's office; that meant that the twenty-three students were scattering over the campus, talking like mad. He shrugged. Keeping them quiet about a thing like this wouldn't have been possible in any case. When he entered his office, Stanly Weill was waiting for him. The lawyer drew him out into the hallway quickly.
"For God's sake, have you been talking to the papers?" he demanded. "After what I told you...."
"No, but somebody has." He told about the call to Whitburn's office, and the latter's behavior. Weill cursed the college president bitterly.
"Any time you want to get a story in the Valley Times, just order Frank Tighlman not to print it. Well, if you haven't talked, don't."
"Suppose somebody asks me?"
"A reporter, no comment. Anybody else, none of his damn business. And above all, don't let anybody finagle you into making any claims about knowing the future. I thought we had this under control; now that it's out in the open, what that fool Whitburn'll do is anybody's guess."
Leonard Fitch met him as he entered the Faculty Club, sizzling with excitement.
"Ed, this has done it!" he began, jubilantly. "This is one nobody can laugh off. It's direct proof of precognition, and because of the prominence of the event, everybody will hear about it. And it simply can't be dismissed as coincidence...."
"Whitburn's trying to do that."