Like the many thousand million in the System, Fred referred to the President familiarly as Jake, but he never thought he would get to talk to him, or be talked to personally.
"What did he want to talk to me for?" Fred asked, dazed.
"That's what I want to show you," said Dr. Sprinnell. "You understood what the President said about keeping this entirely confidential?"
"Hell, no one would believe it if I said I'd been talking to the President, anyway."
"That's what we figure," said the doctor, smiling slightly. He picked up a pack of cards and flipped five of them onto the desk, a circle, a cross, two wavy lines, a rectangle and a star. "These are Zener cards, Fred. Ever see them before?"
No, but they didn't look like much. This was cockeyed, the whole situation—having the President call him so that he and a quack could play cards.
"It will be clearer in a little while," Dr. Howard Sprinnell said. "But first we must run this little check. Please point to one of these cards every minute when I say 'now.'"
Fred shifted himself in the high chair and pointed to one of the five cards obediently every minute. After twenty minutes, the doctor increased the rate. He noted every selection.
"Last lap now, Fred."
He was sick of this, but it was better than sitting in the apartment with Elsie. Fred pointed to a card for the last time.