"I'm sorry, Mr. Blakeson, but I can't accept your offer. I'd love to, but the truth of the matter is—I'm not the man who discovered that comet."
I said, "Wait a minute. Maybe I'm in the wrong galaxy. You're Hawkins, aren't you? You're the guy who plotted the comet's course, no?"
"I'm Hawkins. I plotted its course. But I didn't discover it." His spirits were down around his shoelaces now. "That was done by a neighbor of mine, a few miles down the way. Chap by the name of Hank Cleaver. 'Horse-sense Hank', we call him."
My extra-sensory perception percepted. "Don't look now," I said, "but is this Horse-sense Hank a long cold drink of wisdom about thirty years old? Given to lack of speech and habit of chewing tobacco?"
"That's Hank," said the youngster. "He's the one. He's no astronomer, you understand. But he happened to stop around one night while I was charting. I started to explain something about cometary orbits, and after a while he said he 'lowed as how I ought to take a careful look in the region of Beta Draconis. I did, and—well, there it was. The new comet. He said he just figured as how there ought to be one there!"
"Kid," I said solemnly, "something tells me the discovery of that comet was peanuts. Just peanuts. I'm going to get you that subsidy, anyway. And tomorrow morning I'm going back to have another talk with the guy who earned it for you."
So I did. I found Horse-sense Hank poking around in his south forty and told him what I wanted. He didn't answer for so long that I thought maybe the shock had killed him.
I asked anxiously, "Well, Hank? What's the word?"
"Turnips," he said mournfully, "is hell. It don't matter where you plant 'em or how careful. They never do what you expect. Oh, you mean about the University? Well, I don't guess it would do no harm. I'll go if you want me to."