that's where it will stay. I simply won't destroy it, but I can think of
nobody to whom I'd be willing to show it--certainly nobody at the
college, my History Department colleagues least of all. Merely to tell
the story would brand me irredeemably as a crackpot, but crackpots are
tolerated, even on college faculties. It's only when they begin
producing physical evidence that they get themselves actively resented.

* * * * *

When I went into the club-car for a nightcap before going back to my
compartment to turn in, there were five men there, sitting together.

One was an Army officer, with the insignia and badges of a Staff
Intelligence colonel. Next to him was a man of about my own age, with
sandy hair and a bony, Scottish looking face, who sat staring silently
into a highball which he held in both hands. Across the aisle, an
elderly man, who could have been a lawyer or a banker, was smoking a
cigar over a glass of port, and beside him sat a plump and slightly too
well groomed individual who had a tall colorless drink, probably
gin-and-tonic. The fifth man, separated from him by a vacant chair,
seemed to be dividing his attention between a book on his lap and the
conversation, in which he was taking no part. I sat down beside the
sandy-haired man; as I did so and rang for the waiter, the colonel was
saying:

"No, that wouldn't. I can think of a better one. Suppose you have
Columbus get his ships from Henry the Seventh of England and sail under
the English instead of the Spanish flag. You know, he did try to get
English backing, before he went to Spain, but King Henry turned him
down. That could be changed."