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it went. By the use of loopholes he had remained in the contest. No one outside the contest knew that he had ever missed; it was his secret and the contest people’s secret. And neither of them had any motive to air it publicly.
    Evidently he had become valuable from the standpoint of publicity. Why the public would want the same person to win over and over again he did not know. Obviously, if he won he won over the other contenders. But that was the manner of the public mind. They recognized his name. As it was explained to him, the theory went that the public liked to see a name they could identify. They resisted change. A law of inertia was involved; as long as he was out, the public wanted him—and everyone else—out; as soon as he was in, well, that made it self-perpetuating. The force of stasis worked on his side. The vast reactionary pressures now ran with him, not against him. "Swimming with the tide," as Bill Black would put it.
    Lowery, seated with his legs crossed, smoking and blinking, said, "Have you looked at today’s puzzle?"
    "No," he said. "Just the clues. Do they mean anything?"
    "Not literally."
    "I know that. I mean, do they mean anything at all, in any way, shape, or form? Or is it just to convince us that somebody up at the top knows the answer?"
    "What does that mean?" Lowery said, with a shade of annoyance.
    "I have a theory," Ragle said. "Not a very serious theory, but it’s fun to toy with. Maybe there’s no correct answer."
    Lowery raised an eyebrow. "Then on what basis do we declare one answer a winner and all others incorrect?"
    "Maybe you read over the entries and decide on the strength of them which appeals to you the most. Esthetically."
    Lowry said, "You’re projecting your technique on us."
    "My technique?" He was puzzled.
    "Yes," Lowery said. "You work from an esthetic, not a rational, standpoint. Those scanners you constructed. You view a pattern in space, a pattern in time. You try to fill. Complete the pattern. Anticipate where it goes if extended one more point. That’s not rational; not an intellectual process. That’s how— well, vase-makers work. I’m not disapproving. How you go about it is your business. But you don’t dope it out; I doubt if you’ve ever solved the content of the clues. If you had you wouldn’t have asked, matter of fact."
    No, he realized. I never have doped out the clues. In fact, it had never occurred to him that anybody did, that anyone read them and got concrete meanings from them. Such as lining up the first letter of each third word, adding ten, and coming out with the number of a specific square. Thinking that, he laughed.
    "Why laugh?" Lowery said, with great soberness. "This is a serious business. A lot of money is at stake."
    "I was just thinking about Bill Black."
    "Who’s that?"
    "A neighbor. He wants me to teach him how I do it."
    "Well, if it’s done on an esthetic basis—"
    "Then I can’t," Ragle finished for him. "He’s out of luck. That’s why I laughed. He’ll be disappointed; he wanted to pick up a couple of bucks."
    With a suggestion of moral indignation, Lowery said, "Does it please you to know that your talent can’t be taught? That it isn’t a technique in the usual sense ... it’s more a—" He searched for the word. "God knows. Obviously, chance plays no role."
    "I’m glad to hear somebody say that."
    Lowery said, "Can anybody imagine in good faith that you could guess correctly, day after day? That’s ridiculous. The odds are beyond calculation. Or at least, almost beyond. Yes, we did calculate it. A stack of beans reaching to Betelgeuse."
    "What’s Betelgeuse?"
    "A distant star. I use it as a metaphor. In any case, we know there’s no guesswork involved... except perhaps in the final stage. When it’s a choice between two or three squares."
    "Then I can flip a coin," Ragle agreed.
    "But then," Lowery said thoughtfully, rubbing his chin and waggling his cigar up and down, "when it’s a question of two or three