"No!" Martin said. "It must never be published! It's very vital that it never be published."
"Okay," Browne said. "We won't publish it. We have the contract, but—we won't publish it."
"Thanks, very much," Martin said. "I must hurry back."
The publisher stared thoughtfully at the closed door after Martin had gone. He glanced down at the check.
Lecture room 304 was very large, capable of holding four hundred students in its successive tiers of seats, plus the teacher on his raised platform immediately in front of the large blackboard. In previous years there had been instances of students slipping out after roll call. In spite of everything, it had happened.
Therefore a new system had been inaugurated. Before roll call Martin marched to the back of the room to the only exit and locked it. Pocketing the key, he returned to his podium. It had been going on this way for two years, and was now automatic.
The day watchman, making his rounds, approached this door at precisely two thirty-four. He heard violent pounding. Along with the pounding there was a loud, hoarse voice, gasping, "Lemme out! Lemme out!"
The watchman consulted his clock—the one he used to make a record of his rounds—and determined that it was two thirty-four. He knew that it was Dr. Grant's senior theoretical physics lecture period. He recalled that a couple of years before Dr. Grant had had trouble with students slipping out after roll call. But it occurred to him that it was hardly possible to sneak out, even on Dr. Grant, absent-minded as he was, by pounding on the door and shouting, "Lemme out!" in a terrified tone of voice.
He therefore stopped and knocked on the door, calling, "What's going on in there?"