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that. He read your thesis when a friend in the physics department gave it to him, and he gave it to me to read. He told me when I asked that he was very impressed.”
    “Well, that is something,” Honeycutt said, still without humor. Then he stopped and looked suspicious for a long moment. “Why were you asking about me?”
    “I told you that I am on a mission. I am looking for someone to come work with me.”
    “Doing what?” he asked abruptly. “What could someone like me possibly do for someone like you?”
    “Quite a bit, actually.”
    “You are interested in working with atoms?”
    “No, it is nothing to do with atoms. It is a business project. Investments, to be precise, stocks and bonds.”
    The young physics student looked confused. Then he laughed dismissively. “You did not do your homework very carefully, madam. I am a scientist,” he said, “I’m not a businessman.”
    “Actually, I did my homework, and quite thoroughly,” she said quickly, wishing not to lose ground or to be put off by his gracelessness, about which she had been warned. “Scientific or not is no concern of mine. I amlooking for someone bright and eager—brilliant even—to be my partner in a business venture, and from what I can gather, you are a perfect candidate.” She did not let on that it was his name alone that was the source of her present conviction.
    “I am difficult,” he said, still without an ounce of humor.
    “All the better,” she said. She was not being completely candid, certainly not where her own misgivings were involved. What she really wished to say was that she knew the name and that was all, and he was the only match she could find. In a way, she was desperate. “I am looking for someone smart, efficient, and discreet,” Eleanor said, “and someone named T. Williams Honeycutt. And from what I have been able to discover, you are all of those.”
    The eccentric physics student looked uncomfortable and eyed his guest suspiciously. “You have investigated me,” he said.
    “I have indeed. This is an important maneuver on my part. I need to make a series of investments, over the next few years. I am confident that I will know at the time exactly what those investments will be, and I know what returns they will bring. I need an assistant to carry them out.”
    “And you think that I am that person?”
    “I do. In fact, I am quite convinced. And I am willing to offer a year’s salary in the form of shares in a stock purchase I have just made. As they increase in value and as you pursue a parallel course to the one I will be tracking, you will become a very wealthy man.”
    “Has it occurred to you that you have made a mistake in identity?”
    “I am well past that uncertainty,” she said. “You are T. Williams Honeycutt, are you not?”
    “Of course I am,” he said with something close to contempt.
    “And are you aware of another such T. Williams Honeycutt?” She asked the question on the reasonable assumption that he, having had the name all his life, would know more about the possibility of duplication than anyone else.
    “That is a strange question,” he said with a pause that she should have noticed with concern. “I am the only one I know. Who else would have such a mouthful of a name?”
    “Well, then you are the one I am looking for.” There was a finality to her statement that brought the young physics student to silence, which he held for a long moment.
    “Well, I am very much afraid that I cannot help you.”
    “Are you certain of that, absolutely certain?”
    “Absolutely certain,” he said, yet again gesturing around the room. “I have my job to do here.”
    She allowed a long, uncomfortable silence to fall between them before she spoke. “I have prepared for this eventuality.” She opened her purse and withdrew a small envelope. “I have a reward for your troubles. This is a letter of commitment to give you one share in Cincinnati Soap and Candle Company, the company I