It was a stock student's speech.
I waited for the other two to round it off.
"And why, Professor Smith," said Burns imitating a heavy official voice, "have you alone retained your faculties?"
"Because, dear sir," Lee answered in David Adam Smith's thin voice, "I never admit more than three hundred students to the Institute. And because apparently I have the only mind capable of absorbing the weight of modern knowledge without much strain."
"You do not dislike yourself, Professor."
"I give credit where it is due, dear sir." Lee stopped and continued in his normal voice. "The trouble is, he does produce the stuff. He's supposed to be a geologist, but there hasn't been an invention for the last decade that he didn't master-mind."
"Pity he can't think of some way of speeding up the emigration," John said. "If only we could leave Earth!"
I walked over and pressed the blue button myself.
The grain of sand on the minima plate flicked out of our time-space and reappeared on the maxima plate ten times larger. I picked it up and carried it back to the minima plate, repeated the process and went on until the grain of quartz was more than four feet long.