Nothing So Strange by James Hilton Read Free Book Online Page B

American slang, which he said was enriching the English language at a period
when otherwise a natural impoverishment would have set in. We had another big
argument about that once.)
    “So you don’t think real distinction counts, Mr. Spee?”
    “I didn’t say that. Of course it counts—but it counts a good deal
more if you add salesmanship and what your Hollywood people call
glamour.”
    “ Glamour ?”
    “Certainly…. An interesting new theory, developed by Professor So-and-
So in Vienna … it’s like your sparkling new comedy, straight from its
phenomenal success on Broadway … even if it only ran three nights….
Vienna is the Broadway of the scientific show business…. I’d strongly
recommend a year or two there for you.”
    Brad had the same trouble that I had in deciding whether Julian was
serious or not, and I could see him wondering about it now.
    My father said quietly: “Might not be a bad idea at that.”
    Brad was still puzzling over Julian’s epigram. “Show business, eh?” he
echoed, in a rather shocked tone. “I hope it isn’t quite so bad.”
    “It’s not bad at all, my dear boy, it’s human. We live in an age of
headlines, not of hermits.”
    “Someday,” said my mother, in her random way, “the hermits may make the
headlines.”
    “Vienna’s a good place,” said my father. “A very good place indeed.”
    It seemed to me that everyone was talking at cross-purposes. “I can’t
believe that the true scientist cares much about headlines,” Brad said.
    “No?” Julian gave his rather high-pitched feminine laugh. “I could mention
the names of at least a dozen who care about them passionately. And they’re
big men, not charlatans, don’t make any mistake. They’ll give you some
competition if you go after the plums.”
    “But I don’t want the plums. I’m not a bit ambitious for things like that-
-I wouldn’t enjoy the kind of thing some people call success. All I ask is
the chance to work usefully at something that seems to me worth while.” He
added, as if he had listened to his own words: “And if that sounds priggish I
can’t help it—it’s the only way I can express what I mean.”
    “Oh, no—not priggish at all,” Julian assured him. “Just an honest
mistake you’re making about yourself. Do you mean to tell me you really wouldn’t like to head a research department of your own somewhere, to
have no more drudgery, to get yourself recognized as an equal by those whose
names in the scientific world you know and respect?… Of course you
would…. And as for scientists being worth-whilers and world-savers, let me
prick that bubble for you too. I’ve known a good many of them, and in my
experience, though some may fool themselves about it, they have one simple
and over-riding motive above all others…. Curiosity .”
    “Brad’s motive isn’t that,” my mother interrupted.
    “Then by Christ, if you’ll pardon the expression, it had better be, unless
he’s a mere moralist hiding behind a rampart of test tubes!” He turned to
Brad with his easy confident smile. “Perhaps you are—perhaps you’d
really be more at home in a pulpit than a laboratory.”
    “No, no, Julian,” my mother interrupted again. “That’s absurd—he’s
not a moralist, and why should he hide anywhere? He’s a real
scientist—he even defends vivisection!”
    It was part of my mother’s charm that her mind flew off at tangents
usually capable of changing a subject. This time, however, both Brad and
Julian ignored her and the argument went on. “Of course, my dear boy, I’m
neither defending nor attacking—I’m just diagnosing what I’ve always
felt to be the real germ of the scientific spirit. You probably know much
more about it yourself, but my own opinion is, it’s Pandora’s box that lures,
not the Holy Grail. And I haven’t yet met a scientist who wouldn’t take a
chance of busting up the whole works rather than not find