‘Three!’ said Mr Arlay.

  ‘Four,’ said his wife in a tone of friendly give and take.

  Four hundred it was. When she was gone, Mr Arlay began a checkup to see who had sent him the unusual films. The card index for the film, ‘How to Operate a Chicken Farm,’ gave a list of men and schools and institutions that had rented the item. The second to last rentor would obviously be the one. His gaze flashed down to it.

  ‘Tichenor Collegiate,’ he read.

  Mr Arlay frowned at the name, and mentally changed the wording of the letter he intended to write. Tichenor Collegiate was easily one of his best customers. And, what was more, the operator in charge, Peter Caxton, a science teacher, was a thoroughly experienced man. It scarcely seemed possible that Caxton could be guilty.

  Mr Arlay quickly examined the card for another of the eccentric films. The second to last borrower was Tichenor Collegiate. The same name came up for each of the three others returned to him, and which didn’t belong to his library. Mr Arlay sat down at his typewriter and, bearing in mind that customers were seldom offended by the facts of the case, wrote:

  Dear Mr Caxton;

  A number of films which you have returned to us were not the ones which we originally sent you. Altogether five films.

  He paused there. Five? How did he know there were only five? Mr Arlay made a beeline for the Tichenor Collegiate’s personal file card. It was a thick one, additions having been glued to it from time to time.

  He skipped down to the fifteenth name on the card. That would take it back just a little over two weeks. The title was: ‘Pruning Fruit Trees.’ The film itself, when Mr Arlay viewed it, was a fantastic concoction in which a curiously shaped ship seemed to leave the Earth’s surface and go to the Moon. The illusions were very realistic, and the photography had a Hollywood slickness.

  Mr Arlay shut it off finally, thinking for the first time that whoever was making those pictures would be well worth representing.

  Meanwhile, there was a job to do. One by one, he screened the last nineteen films that had been borrowed by Tichenor. That is, he screened the sixteen that were in. Three had been re-rented and, in due course, no doubt, he would hear from them.

  Of the sixteen, seven were travelogs. Travelogs - unique, incredible creations, filmed by a madman. But mad or not, he was a genius, and he had designed some of the most lifelike backgrounds ever conceived for fantasia. Among the first few that Mr Arlay screened was the one about Venus which, ten weeks later, Pedro del Corteya showed to electronics manufacturer Walter Dorman. Mr Arlay watched it and the other reels about the solar system with an appraising eye. There was, it seemed to him, much to be said for a skillful motion-picture presentation of what science believed about the various planetary bodies.

  Seven travelogs and eight how-to-operate or how-to-repair films - one dealing with the operation of a meaningless engine. At least it seemed meaningless to Mr Arlay. It had a single extrusion in a strong boxing. There were little chambers in the boxing, and when they were filled with a fine metallic powder, the extrusion could be made to turn with a velocity that did not slow when it was connected with a large machine of intricate construction. Another film dealt with the repair of what was called an atomic gun. Here, too, the fine metallic powder was tamped into tiny chambers, but there was a transformation tunnel, the purpose of which was not clear. When fired, the gun, a hand weapon, blew a four-hundred-foot-high hill into dust.

  Mr Arlay became impatient as the eight films unreeled on to the screen. This was going a little too far. The travelogs had a certain scientific value, but these operation and repair films, with their pretense to detail, strained all credulity. An atomic engine and an atomic gun. How to repair a space drive. Care and operation of the Fly-O, an individual flyer - a combination of straps and a metallic tube that lifted the man in the film off the ground and transported him through the air like Buck Rogers. A radio that was simply a bracelet made of what was called ‘sensitive metal.’ The crystalline structure of the sensitivity was detailed, and the radio waves were shown transformed into sound by ultra-thin bubbles in the metal. There were three rather amusing films about household devices. There was a light which focused wherever desired out of thin air; rugs and furniture that couldn’t get dirty; and finally, the automatic stove that was later to rouse Walter Dorman’s competitive instincts. Long before the showing was finished, it had struck Mr Arlay that there was a type of audience that would be interested in such novelties. It would be important, however, to stress the novelty angle, so that the people would be prepared to laugh.

  His best bet, of course, would be to locate their source, and stock a few himself. He phoned Tichenor Collegiate, and asked for Caxton. Caxton said:

  ‘My dear Mr Arlay, it cannot possibly be we who are at fault To prevent confusion in bookkeeping, I have long adopted a policy of renting from only one library at a time. For the past two months we have secured our material from you, and returned it promptly. Perhaps you had better reexamine your files.

  His tone was faintly patronising, and there was just enough suggestion of an affronted customer in it to make Mr Arlay back down.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. I’ll have a look at them myself. My helper must have… uh…’

  Mr Arlay hung up, saw that it was nearly one o’clock, and went out to lunch. He drove all the way up to Main Street for a bowl of tomato soup. The fever in him died slowly, and he realised that it was actually not a difficult situation. He had lost nineteen films, but if he wrote careful letters to the firms that had supplied them to him they would probably send him new ones immediately. And as a sort of compensation for the wear and tear on his nerves, he had sixteen, possibly nineteen, novelty films which might go over rather well.

  They did. At least once a week the novelties went out into the mails, and returned again. And by the time they came back there were orders waiting for most of them for the following week. Mr Arlay did not worry about what the real owner of the films would think when he discovered what was happening. No single library film was worth very much. The owner would probably demand the wholesaler’s percentage, and this Mr Arlay was prepared to pay.

  And just in case audience reaction would be required, Mr Arlay sent printed forms for comments. They came back properly filled out. The size of the audience: one hundred, two hundred, seventy-five. The nature of the audience: retailers’ dinner, university astronomy class, the society of physicists, high school students. The reaction of the audience - comments most often made: amusing, interesting, good photography. One common criticism was that the dialog could be more humorous, befitting the nature of the subject matter.

  The situation did not remain static. At the end of the second month, Mr Arlay had thirty-one more novelty films, and every one of them had been sent to him by Peter Caxton of Tichenor Collegiate.

  After ten weeks, just about the time that Pedro del Corteya was due to show the stove picture to the electronic manufacturers’ convention, two things happened approximately simultaneously: Mr Arlay raised the rent of the novelties fifty percent, and Caxton sent him a letter, which read in part: ‘I have noticed in your folders a reference to some novelty films. I would like one dealing with a planet for next Wednesday.’

  Now, thought Mr Arlay, now we shall see.

  The can came back on Thursday. The film inside was also a novelty type. But it was not the same one he had sent out.

  III

  On his way to Tichenor Collegiate for the afternoon classes, Peter Caxton stopped in the corner drugstore and bought a pack of cigarettes. There was a full-length mirror just in front of the door. As he emerged, he paused briefly to survey himself in it.

  The picture he saw pleased him. His tall form was well dressed, his face clean but not too youthful, and his eyes were a smiling gray. The well-groomed effect was accentuated by a neat gray hat. He walked on, content. Caxton had no illusions about life. Life was what you made it. And as far as he could see, if he worked things right, he ought to be principal of Tichenor in another two years. The time limit was unavoidable. Old Varnish was not due for retirement until then, and Caxton could see no way by which the process could be speeded up.

  Tichenor was no super-school, nor did it have the fancy money behind it that some neighboring communities raised every year for education. The smoking room for the men and women was a joint affair. Caxton settled into one of the chairs and puffed quickly at his cigarette. He was about halfway through when Miss Gregg came in.

  She smiled warmly. ‘Lo, Peter,’ she said. Her gaze flashed significantly to the closed doors of the men’s and women’s dressing rooms, then back to him.

  Caxton said, ‘Nobody in the men’s.’

  She opened the door to the women’s, glanced in, then came over in a gliding motion and planted a kiss on his lips.

  ‘Careful,’ said Peter Caxton.

  ‘Tonight,’ she said in a low tone, ‘at the end of the park.’

  Caxton could not suppress a faint look of irritation. ‘I’ll try,’ he said, ‘but my wife -’

  She whispered fondly, ‘I’ll expect you.’

  The door closed softly behind her. Caxton sat frowning, disturbed. At first it had been pleasant, his conquest of Miss Gregg’s heart. But after six months of ever more frequent rendezvous, the affair was beginning to be a little wearing. She had reached the stage where she anticipated that somehow he would manage to get a divorce, and that somehow it would not hurt his career, and that somehow everything would come out all right. Caxton shared neither her anxiety for such a culmination nor her vague conviction that there would be no repercussions.

  Miss Gregg, he realised too late, was an emotional fool. For a month he had known that he must break off with her, but so far only one method had occurred to him: she must be eased out of the school. How? The answer to that, too, had come easily. A whispering campaign against her and Dorrit. That way he could kill two birds with one stone. Dorrit was his only serious rival for the principalship and, what was worse, he and Old Varnish got along very well.

  It shouldn’t be very hard. Everybody except Miss Gregg knew that Dorrit was nuts about her, and Dorrit didn’t seem to suspect that his secret was known. The situation amused Caxton. He, a married man, had walked off with Dorrit’s dream girl. There was no reason why he shouldn’t also snatch the principalship from under Dorrit’s nose, so to speak. He’d have to think a little more about the moves, and proceed with the utmost caution.

  Caxton rubbed his cigarette into an ash tray with a speculative thoughtfulness, then he headed for the auditorium. His first class was to have a film showing - a nuisance, those things. In the beginning, he had been quite interested, but there were too many poor films. Besides, the dopes never learned anything anyway. He had once questioned some of the brighter students about what they had learned from a film, and it was pitiful. Proponents, however, maintained that the effect was cumulative, the kids preferred it to other methods of teaching, and last week the school board had ordered that Grade Ten, as well as Grade Eleven, was to be shown each film.

  That meant that once in the morning, once in the afternoon, he had to handle a swarm of teenagers in the darkness of an auditorium. At least this was the last showing for today. The film had been running for about a minute when Caxton took his first real look at the screen. He stared for a moment blankly, then shut off the projector, turned on the lights, and came down from the projection room.

  ‘Who’s responsible for this silly trick?’ he asked angrily.

  No one answered. The girls looked a little scared, the boys stiffened, except for a few teachers’ pets, who turned pale.

  ‘Somebody,’ Caxton shouted, ‘has switched films on me over the lunch hour.’

  He stopped. His own words jarred him. He had charged out of the projection booth without pausing to assess the implications of what had happened. Now, suddenly, he realised. For the first time in his four years at Tichenor he had been the victim of a student’s prank, and he was taking it badly. After a moment of further thought, he made an even greater mental adjustment, and the situation was saved.

  Caxton swallowed hard. A wan smile lighted his tense face. He looked around coolly. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if this is what you want, you’ll get it.’

  The second day his smile was grimmer, and it became a matter of discipline. ‘If this,’ he said, ‘happens again, I shall have to report to Old Varn -’ He stopped. He had been about to say ‘Old Varnish.’ He finished instead, properly - ‘to report to Mr Varney.’

  It was a shaken and somewhat mystified Caxton who went into the principal’s office the following day. ‘But where do they obtain the replacement films?’ the old man asked helplessly. ‘After all, they cost money.’

  The question was not his final word. On Thursday, the film again being different, he trotted dutifully to each of the two classes, and pointed out the unfairness of their action. He also indicated that, since the lost films would have to be paid for, the affair was beginning to take on a decidedly criminal aspect.

  The fifth day was Friday, and it was evident that the students had talked things over, for the president of each of the two classes made a brief denial of the suspicions of the faculty. ‘As you probably know,’ said one, ‘the students are usually aware of what is going on among themselves. But this class as a whole is unaware of the identity of the guilty party. Whoever is changing the films is playing a lone hand, and we herewith denounce him, and withdraw any support or sympathy we might normally give to such a student.’

  The words should have quieted Caxton’s nerves. But they had the reverse effect. His first conviction, that he was being made game of by the students, had already partly yielded to a wilder thought, and the speeches merely enlivened the newer feeling. That afternoon at recess, without proper forethought, he made the mistake of voicing the suspicion to the principal.

  ‘If the students are not to blame, then one of the teachers must be. And the only one I know who dislikes me intensely is Dorrit.’ He added grimly, ‘If I were you, I would also investigate the relationship between Miss Gregg and Dorrit.’

  Varney showed a surprising amount of initiative. The truth was, the old man was easily tired, and he was already worn out by the affair. He called both Miss Gregg and Dorrit, and, to Caxton’s dismay, repeated the accusations, Miss Gregg flashed one amazed look at the stunned Caxton, and then sat rigid throughout the rest of the meeting. Dorrit looked angry for a moment, then he laughed.

  ‘This week,’ he said, ‘has been an eye-opener for most of us here. We have seen Caxton wilt under the conviction that the student body didn’t like him. I always thought he was a highly developed neurotic, and now in five days he has shown that he is worse than anything I imagined. Like all true neurotics of the more advanced kind, he failed to make even the most elementary investigations before launching his accusations. For instance, his first charge. I can disprove that since, for at least two days this week, I could not possibly have been near the projection room.’

  He proceeded to do so. He had been sick at his boarding house on Tuesday and Wednesday.

  ‘As for the second and more unforgivable accusation, I only wish it were true, though in a different sense than Caxton has implied. I am one of those shy individuals where women are concerned, but under the circumstances I can say that I have long been a distant admirer of Miss Gregg.’

  The young woman showed her first vague interest at that point. From the corner of her eye she glanced at Dorrit, as if she were seeing him in a new light. The glance lasted only a moment, then she returned to her tense contemplation of the wall straight in front of her. Dorrit was continuing:

  ‘It is difficult, of course, to disprove anything as vague as the charge Mr Caxton has leveled, but -’

  Old Varnish cut him off. ‘It is quite unnecessary to say anything further. I do not for one moment believe a word of it, and I cannot understand what Mr Caxton’s purpose could have been, to introduce such an ill-considered accusation into this wretched affair of the lost films. If the film situation does not rectify, I shall report to the school board at their meeting next week, and we shall have an investigation. That is all. Good day, gentlemen. Good day, Miss Gregg.’

  Caxton spent a confused weekend. He was pretty sure that the principal had derived satisfaction from the situation, but there was nothing to do about that except curse himself for having provided the man with the opportunity to get rid of an unwanted heir to his own position. The worst confusion, however, had nothing to do with Varney. Caxton had the sinking feeling that things were happening behind his back. The feeling turned out to be correct.

  On Monday morning all the women teachers snubbed him, and most of the men were distinctly unfriendly. One of the men walked over and said in a low tone, ‘How did you happen to make such a charge against Gregg and Dorrit?’

  ‘I was beside myself with worry,’ Caxton said miserably. ‘I was not in my right senses.’

  ‘You sure weren’t,’ said the other. ‘Gregg’s told all the women.’

  Caxton thought grimly, A woman scorned.

  The other man finished, ‘I’ll try to do what I can but…’

  It was too late. At lunchtime the women teachers entered the principal’s office in a body, and announced that they would refuse to work in the same school with a male teacher capable of such an untrue story about one of them. Caxton, who had already permitted himself flashing thoughts on the possibility of resignation, was now confronted by the necessity of an actual decision. He resigned at intermission, the separation to take effect at the end of the month, the following weekend.

  His action cleared the air. The male teachers were friendlier, and his own mind slowly and painfully straightened out. By Tuesday he was thinking savagely but with clarity: Those films! If it hadn’t been for that mixup, I wouldn’t have lost my head. If I could find oat who was responsible...