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humor in David tonight in place of his natural good spirits. Perhaps he needs a bit of cheering up, he thought.
    'You mean that chrome-plated mound of fancy hardware we saw this afternoon still isn't working?' he asked in mock surprise. 'Why don't you guys design equipment that works? By the way, David, the children were very impressed with your lab. On the way home Jeff asked why I wasn't allowed to have neat stuff like yours.'
    David laughed. 'What did you tell them?'
    'I tried to explain,' said Paul, 'that a theoretical physicist works mainly with paper, pencil, and brainpower, that I didn't need elaborate equipment. I'm not sure they bought my story. I told them about all the thousands of kilobucks that the misguided funding agencies take from our important theoretical work to lavish on your ill-conceived experiments. But they decided that the crystals and balloons provided sufficient justification for continued support of experimental physics.' Paul offered David a bowl of nuts. He looked closely at David, watching to make sure his teasing hadn't irritated his friend.
    'Aw, come on, Paul,' countered David, joining the familiar game. He was clearly more cheerful and relaxed now. 'What would you theorists find to spend real money on, should someone be foolish enough to give you some? How many pencils and note pads do they have to buy you guys before you're happy, anyhow? Why, when you guys latch on to some money you promptly embarrass the rest of the physics community by gathering at phony institutes and conferences held at beach resorts and ski lodges to fritter away dollars that might be better used for experiments to demonstrate the holes in your partially baked theoretical ideas.' Paul had spent a month at the Aspen Institute for Theoretical Physics for the past several summers, and David frequently reminded him of this.
    David leaned back and smiled, as though awaiting Paul's counterpunch, but at that point Elizabeth Ernst emerged from the dining room, wiping her hands on a towel. 'I hope you two aren't arguing about funding again,' she said. 'My God! The only thing more boring than listening to a radio interview with an athlete is listening to scientists talk about funding. And did I understand that you ham-handed experimentalists are out to put my poor husband out of business?'
    'What's fun-ding?' asked Jeff, wrinkling his nose.
    David turned to Jeff and said, 'Funding is money that governments and foundations give scientists like your dad and me every year so that we can have fun for the rest of the year. That's why it's called FUN-ding, Jeff!' He winked, then turned to Elizabeth and said, 'There is one thing that's more boring than either of those: have you ever heard an interview with the lawyer of an athlete?'
    She grimaced.
    'Anyhow, Elizabeth, you needn't worry about us experimentalists causing any problems for your husband. He's found himself a nice ecological niche that's well insulated from the harsh environment of the real world. His theories can probably survive indefinitely, unblemished by embarrassing confrontations with experimental reality.'
    'Is that a virtue?' asked Elizabeth, raising her expressive eyebrows and looking at her husband. 'I thought physics theories were supposed to be testable.'
    'What David's saying in his colorful but bombastic way,' said Paul, 'is that in my field of theoretical physics our pursuit of the underpinnings of nature has led us further and further away from anything that can be directly tested by doing experiments. The size scale is too small; the energy needed is too big. In the area of theoretical physics I'm looking at now, all the experimental work was over and done with before the Big Bang had expanded to the size of a pinhead. God has closed down the experimental laboratory until the next time around, if there is one.'
    Elizabeth looked from David to Paul. This is all news to me,' she said. ' I thought you guys had a hot line to the innermost secrets of the