Quade ploughed through an aisle to the far end of the auditorium. Commercial exhibits were contained in booths all around the four sides of the huge room, but Quade found a small spot that had been overlooked and pushed a couple of chicken coops into the space.
Then he climbed up on the coops and began talking.
The Human Encyclopedia’s voice was an amazing one. People who heard it always marveled that such a tremendous voice could come from so lean a man. Speaking without noticeable effort, his voice rolled out across the chicken coops.
“I’m Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia,” he boomed. “I have the greatest brain in the entire country. I know the answers to all questions, what came first, the chicken or the egg, every historical date since the beginning of time, the population of every city in the country, how to eradicate mice in your poultry yards, how to mix feeds to make your chickens lay more eggs. Everything. Everything under the sun. On any subject: history, science, agriculture, and mathematics.”
The scattered persons in the auditorium began to converge upon Quade’s stand. Inside of two minutes three-fourths of the people in the building were gathered before Quade and the rest were on their way. He continued his preliminary build-up in his rich, powerful voice.
“Ask me a question, someone. Let me prove that I’m the Human Encyclopedia, the man who knows the answers to all questions. Try me out, someone, on any subject; history, science, mathematics, agriculture — anything at all!”
Quade stabbed out his lean forefinger at a middle-aged, sawed-off man wearing a tan smock. “You, sir, ask me a question?”
The man flushed at being singled out of the crowd. “Why, uh, I don’t know of any… Yes, I do. What’s the highest official egg record ever made by a hen?”
“That’s the stuff,” smiled Quade. He held out his hand dramatically. “That’s a good question, but an easy one to answer. The highest record ever made by a hen in an American official egg-laying contest is three hundred and forty-two eggs. It was made in 1930 at the Athens, Georgia, Egg-Laying Contest, by a Single-Comb White Leghorn. Am I right, Mister?”
The sawed-off man nodded grudgingly. “Yeah, but I don’t see how you knew it. Most poultry folks don’t even remember it.”
“Oh, but you forget I told you I had the greatest brain in the country. I know the answer to all questions on any subject. Don’t bother to ask me simple poultry questions. Try me on something hard. You—” he picked out a lean, dour looking man. “Ask me something hard.”
The man bit his lip a moment, then said:
“All right, what State has the longest coast line?”
Quade grinned. “Ah, you’re trying the tricky stuff. But you can’t fool me. Most folks would say California or Florida. But the correct answer is Michigan. And to head off the rest of you on the trick geography questions let me say right away that Kentucky has the largest number of other states touching it and Minnesota has the farthest northern point of any State. Next question!”
A young fellow wearing pince-nez put his tongue into his cheek and asked, “Why and how does a cat purr?”
“Oh-oh!” Quade craned his neck to stare at the young fellow. “I see we have a student with us. Well, young man, you’ve asked a question so difficult that practically every university professor in this country would be stumped by it. But I’m not. It so happens that I read a recent paper by Professor E. L. Gibbs of the Harvard Medical School in which he gave the results of his experiments on four hundred cats to learn the answer to that very same question. The first part of the question is simple enough — the cat purrs when it is contented, but to explain the actual act of purring is a little more difficult. Contentment in a cat relaxes the infundibular nerve in the brain, which reacts upon the pituitary and bronchial organs and makes the purring sound issue from the cat’s throat… Try that one on your friends, sometime. Someone else try me on a question.”
“I’d like to ask one,” said a clear, feminine voice. Quade’s eyes lit up. He had already noticed the girl, the only female in his audience. She was amazingly pretty, the type of a girl he would scarcely have expected to find at a poultry show. She was young, not more than twenty-one, and she had the finest chiseled features Quade had ever seen. She was a blonde and the rakish green hat and green coat she wore, although inexpensive, looked exceedingly well on her.
“Yes, what is the question?” he asked, leaning forward a bit.
The girl’s chin came up defiantly. “I just want to know why certain poultry judges allow dyed birds to be judged for prizes!”
A sudden rumble went up in the crowd and Quade saw the sawed-off man in the tan smock whirl and glare angrily at the girl
“Oh-oh,” Quade said. “You seem to have asked a delicate question. Well, I’ll answer it just the same. Any judge who allows a dyed Rhode Island Red to stay in the class is either an ignorant fool — or a crook!”
“Damn you!” roared the little man, turning back to Quade. “You can’t say that to me. I’ll — I’ll have you thrown out of here.” He started pushing his way through the crowd, heading in the direction of the front office.
“If the shoe fits, put it on,” Quade called after him. Then to the girl, “Who’s he?”
“A judge here. Stone’s his name.”
“Well, let’s get on with the show,” Quade said to the crowd. “Next question?”
Quade had lost nothing by his bold answer to the girl’s question. The audience warmed to him and the questions came fast and furious.
“Who was the eleventh president of the United States?”
“What is the Magna Charta?”
“Who was the 1896 Olympic 220-meter champion?”
“How do you cure scaly legs in chickens?”
“How far is Saturn from the earth?”
Quade answered all the questions put to him, with lightning rapidity. But suddenly he called a dramatic halt. “That’s all the questions, folks. Now let me show you how you can learn all the answers yourselves to every question that has just been asked — and ten thousand more.”
He held out his hands and Charlie Boston tossed a thick book into them which he had taken from the suitcase they had brought with them. Quade began ruffling the pages.
“They’re all in here. This, my friends, is the ‘Compendium of Human Knowledge,’ the greatest book of its kind ever published. Twelve hundred pages, crammed with facts, information every one of you should know. The knowledge of the ages, condensed, classified, abbreviated. A complete high-school education in one volume. Ten minutes a day and this book will make you the most learned person in your community!”
Quade lowered his voice to a confidential pitch. “Friends, I’m going to astonish you by telling you the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard: The price of this book. What do you think I’m asking for it? Twenty-five dollars? No, not even twenty… or fifteen. In fact, not even ten or five dollars. Just a mere, paltry, insignificant two dollars and ninety-five cents. But I’m only going to offer these books once at that price. Two-ninety-five, and here I come!”
Quade leaped down from his platform to attack his audience, supposedly built up to the buying pitch. But he was destined not to sell any books just then. Charlie Boston tugged at his coat sleeve.
“Look, Ollie!” he whispered hoarsely. “He got the cops!”
Quade raised himself to his toes to look over the chicken coops. He groaned. For the short man in the tan smock was coming up the center aisle leading a small procession of policemen.
Quade sighed. “Put the books back into the suitcase, Charlie.” He leaned against a poultry coop and waited to submit quietly to the arrest.
But the policemen did not come toward him. Reaching the center aisle the man in the tan smock wheeled to the left, away from Quade, and the police followed him.