The Reluctant Shaman and Other Fantastic Tales

Buckminster caught Grinnig's belt in the rear and hung on lest they be separated in the rush. When they had put a respectable distance between themselves and the now furiously smoking building, they looked back. Workmen were scattered all over the intervening area; clerks and instructors poured out of the school building. Among these Buckminster recognized a small group of men in coats and neckties as the executives.

"Come on," he said to Grinnig. "If we can find Thurtle, maybe we can fix Arson's wagon."

A policeman cleared a way for the fire engines. Buckminster and Grinnig worked their way around the cleared area to where the executives stood. The former called:

"Oh, Mr. Thurtle!"

Julian Thurtle, dean of the School of Shop Practice of the Mercury Home Study Institute, looked about as much like a chimpanzee with a white handle-bar mustache as a man can without actually being a chimpanzee with a white handle-bar mustache. But he was a wise old teacher of technics whose courses, the texts for many of which he wrote himself, were up to college standards and had actually helped many ambitious young men on their way to success, as claimed in his company's advertisements.

He was conversing with the vice president in charge of sales, who was saying: "—of course, it's all insured, but it'll raise Ned with our publishing schedule, not to mention interrupting a lot of the courses. The Education Everywhere Institute won't be sorry to hear of it."

Thurtle sighed. "Yes, yes. Dear me. Maybe we could persuade the I. C. C. to help us out; they're pretty decent fellows—" He saw Buckminster and said: "Yes? Yes? You are ... don't tell me ... Buckmaster of the Philadelphia office, aren't you?"

The salesman corrected him and asked: "Can I see you a minute—"

"Not now, not now, my dear fellow. This is too important. Go on, get your hoses inside the building, you ... you twerps!" The last sentence was addressed in a low voice to the distant firemen.

A policeman approached with a pad in hand. He said: "Oh, Mr. Thurtle—"

"Yes? Yes? Oh, hello, Bill. What—"

"There was an alarm sent out for a gang of pyromaniacs that's terrorizing northern New Jersey," said the cop. "They burned a truck and a coupla houses, and they knocked a cop unconscious at the George Washington Bridge. I was wondering if they mightn't have something to do with this—"

"Yes. No. Dear me, I don't know. I'm too upset, officer."

"Okay, Mr. Thurtle," said the cop and wandered off.

Then there were sudden cries from the crowd. A crew of firemen were advancing on a doorway with a hose, which they played through the aperture, when a large figure in shapeless gray garments came out that door from the burning building. The stream of water from the hose struck the figure squarely, but instead of knocking him back into the building as it should have done, it gave a colossal hiss and turned into a vast cloud of steam. Some witnesses, including Clem Buckminster, had a glimpse of the gray figure dodging out of the steam cloud and vanishing around the corner of the building.

"Good gracious," said Thurtle. "What—"

Buckminster cried: "That's what I wanna see you about, Mr. Thurtle! This here is Carl Grinnig, who got the first lesson in that new course of yours!"

"Oh." Comprehension dawned in Thurtle's eyes, and he followed the salesman unprotesting.