The Blind Spot | Page 6

The man had an evident curiosity for everything
about him, the buildings, the street, the cars, and the people. Frequently he would mutter:
"Wonderful, wonderful, and all the time we have never known it. Wonderful!"
As they drew into Lorin the officer ventured a question.
"You have friends in Berkeley? I see you are a stranger. If I may presume, perhaps I may
be of assistance?"

"Well, yes, if--if--do you know of a Dr. Holcomb?"
"You mean the professor. He lives on Dwight Way. At this time of the day you would be
more apt to find him at the university. Is he expecting you?"
It was a blunt question and of course none of his business. Yet, just what another does not
want him to know is ever the pursuit of a detective. At the same time the subconscious
flashing and wondering at the name Rhamda Avec--surely neither Teutonic nor Sanskrit
nor anything between.
"Expecting me? Ah, yes. Pardon me if I speak slowly. I am not quite used to speech--yet.
I see you are interested. After I see Dr. Holcomb I may tell you. However, it is very
urgent that I see the doctor. He--well, I may say that we have known each other a long
time."
"Then you know him?"
"Yes, in a way; though we have never met. He must be a great man. We have much in
common, your doctor and I; and we have a great deal to give to your world. However, I
would not recognise him should I see him. Would you by any chance--"
"You mean would I be your guide? With pleasure. It just happens that I am on friendly
terms with your friend Dr. Holcomb."

II
THE PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY
And now to start in on another angle. There is hardly any necessity for introducing Dr.
Holcomb. All of us, at least, those who read, and, most of all, those of us who are
interested in any manner of speculation, knew him quite well. He was the professor of
philosophy at the University of California: a great man and a good one, one of those fine
academic souls who, not only by their wisdom, but by their character, have a way of
stamping themselves upon generations; a speaker of the upstanding class, walking on his
own feet and utterly fearless when it came to dashing out on some startling philosophy
that had not been borne up by his forebears.
He was original. He believed that the philosophies of the ages are but stepping stones,
that the wisdom of the earth looked but to the future, and that the study of the classics,
however essential, is but the ground work for combining and working out the problems of
the future. He was epigrammatic, terse, and gifted with a quaint humour, with which he
was apt, even when in the driest philosophy, to drive in and clinch his argument.
Best of all, he was able to clothe the most abstract thoughts in language so simple and
concrete that he brought the deepest of all subjects down to the scope of the commonest
thinker. It is needless to say that he was 'copy.' The papers about the bay were ever and

anon running some startling story of the professor.
Had they stuck to the text it would all have been well; but a reporter is a reporter; in spite
of the editors there were numerous little elaborations to pervert the context. A great man
must be careful of his speech. Dr. Holcomb was often busy refuting; he could not
understand the need of these little twistings of wisdom. It kept him in controversy; the
brothers of his profession often took him to task for these little distorted scraps of
philosophy. He did not like journalism. He had a way of consigning all writers and
editors to the devil.
Which was vastly amusing to the reporters. Once they had him going they poised their
pens in glee and began splashing their venomous ink. It was tragic; the great professor
standing at bay to his tormentors. One and all they loved him and one and all they took
delight in his torture. It was a hard task for a reporter to get in at a lecture; and yet it was
often the lot of the professor to find himself and his words featured in his breakfast paper.
On the very day before this the doctor had come out with one of his terse startling
statements. He had a way of inserting parenthetically some of his scraps of wisdom. It
was in an Ethics class. We quote his words as near as possible:
"Man, let me tell you, is egotistic. All our philosophy is based on ego. We live threescore
years and we balance it with