Desk Set Page #4

"At White Plains,

three got off and one got on.

"At Chappaqua

nine got off and four got on.

"And at each successive

stop thereafter...

"nobody got off, nobody got on till the

train reached its next-to-the-last stop,

"where five people got off

and one got on.

Then it reached the terminal."

That's easy.

Eleven passengers and a crew of nine.

Uh, w...

That's not the question.

I'm sorry.

"How many people

got off at Chappaqua?"

Nine.

- That's correct.

- Yes, I know.

Uh, would you mind telling me

how you arrived at that conclusion?

Spooky, isn't it?

Did you notice that there are also

nine letters in "Chappaqua"?

Are you in the habit of

associating words...

with the number of letters in them?

I associate many things

with many things.

I see. Hmm.

Aren't you going to ask me how many

people got off at White Plains? Three.

But there are ten letters

in White Plains.

No. Eleven.

But only three got off there.

You see, I've only ever

been to White Plains...

three times in my whole life.

Well, supposing you'd

only been there twice.

But I wasn't.

I was there three times.

Aren't you gonna ask me

how many people got on at Croton Falls?

There is no Croton Falls

mentioned at all in the question.

No, but it is

the next-to-the-last stop on that line.

Anyway, one.

- Aren't you cold?

- No, no, don't worry. I never get cold.

Now, do you notice anything unusual

about the following sentence?

"Able was I, ere I saw Elba."

Um, no.

But...

I doubt that Napoleon

ever said anything like that.

Unless you mean because it's spelled

the same way backward and forward.

Is that what you meant?

What do they call it? A...

A palindrome.

Mmm. I know another.

"Madam, I'm Adam."

I doubt if he ever said that.

Now, I have

three telephone numbers.

I'm going to repeat them just once.

- See if you can repeat them after me.

- Mm-hmm.

- Are you ready?

- Yeah.

Plaza 2-3391.

Hmm.

Murray Hill 3-1099.

Plaza 2-3931.

Tough question?

Mm-mmm.

Tough roast beef.

Plaza 2-3391.

Murray Hill 3-1099.

And Plaza 2-3931.

Would you mind

telling me how you arrived at that?

First is Plaza 2 with

the year of the bank panic reversed.

The second one is Murray Hill 3...

with, uh, 33 years after

the date of the Norman conquest.

And the last one is Plaza 2...

with the number

the same as the first,

second and third digits transposed.

Except that there's something

terribly wrong with that question.

Mmm, really?

I don't think there is

any Plaza 2 exchange.

Mm-hmm.

"What, if anything,

is, uh, wron..."

- Well, I guess we can skip that.

- Mmm.

Whew.

Now, before asking you

the next question,

I must advise you

it contains a trick.

In order to see into the trick,

I give you two words of advice:

Never assume.

Don't worry. I won't.

- Are you ready?

- Mm-hmm.

"A detective

broke into an apartment,

"found Harry and Grace

lying on the floor, dead.

Mm-hmm.

"Beside them was

a small pool of water...

"and some fragments

of broken glass.

"Above them, on a sofa

looking down at them, was a pet cat,

"his back arched.

"The detective concluded,

without further investigation,

"that the victims had died

of strangulation.

How was this conclusion possible?"

Never assume, hmm?

Never assume.

Yeah, well,

the only thing

I'm assuming is that, uh,

Harry and Grace were...

Hey.

Were Harry and Grace...

Oh, no, it's too silly.

Were Harry and Grace goldfish?

No. They weren't.

They were rare tropical fish.

Like you.

How did your machine

do on this test?

No machine can evaluate...

How'd you happen

to ask that question?

Oh, I did a little research on you.

- Oh.

- Mm-hmm.

You were born in Columbus, Ohio

on May 22. That makes you a Gemini.

You're a graduate of M.I.T.

With a PhD in Science.

You're a Phi Beta Kappa,

although you don't wear your key,

which means either

that you're modest or that you lost it.

You spent World War II

in Greenland...

working on something so top secret

that even I couldn't find out about it.

You're one of the leading exponents of

the electronic brain in this country...

and the inventor of an electronic

brain machine called EMMARAC...

the Electromagnetic Memory and Research

Arithmetical Calculator.

That's all I found out so far,

but I only had half an hour.

A very rare tropical fish.

Thank you.

Did you ever see

one of these electronic brains work?

- EMMARAC, for example?

- Yeah. Yeah.

Just this morning, as a matter of fact,

I saw a demonstration at I BM.

Oh? Did you see it

translate Russian into Chinese?

Yeah. I saw it do everything.

Frightening.

Gave me the feeling

that maybe, just maybe,

people were

a little bit outmoded.

Mmm. Wouldn't surprise me a bit

if they stopped making them.

Thanks, Don.

Hello, Smithers.

- Say, Miss Watson...

- How's everything in Legal?

You haven't been to see me for a

long time. Isn't there any new gossip?

None of the vice presidents

getting divorces or anything?

No. But I heard...

I heard something that

concerns you, personally.

- You did?

- Yeah.

You haven't heard I'm engaged

to be married, have you?

No! Are you?

No. And if you ever hear anything like

that, you come and tell me right away.

And be sure you get

the name of the man too.

I, uh...

- I was down in Personnel this morning.

- You were where?

- Personnel. On the ninth floor.

- Oh.

And while I was in there, they sent down

from Mr. Azae's office for your...

for your personnel file.

- They did?

- Yeah.

And you know, when they send

for those personnel folders,

it generally means

they're adding up the severance pay.

I didn't want to worry you or anything,

Miss Watson.

Oh. Oh, no.

I know you didn't.

- Just thought I ought to tell you.

- Yeah, thanks.

Yeah. Anytime.

I thought you'd never get back.

Do you know what Richard Sumner's doing?

Yeah. He's up on the roof

feeding the pigeons.

- No, do you know what he's doing here?

- What?

He's trying to replace us all

with a mechanical brain!

He's under special assignment

to Azae...

to see if EMMARAC

can be adapted to this department.

- That means the end of us all!

- Peg, Peg, calm down.

No machine can do our job.

That's what they said in Payroll.

- Did he design the machine in Payroll?

- Yes!

And as soon as it was installed,

half the department disappeared!

Well, the machine in Payroll

is just a calculator.

They can't build a machine

to do our job.

There are too many

cross-references in this place.

I'd match my memory against

any machine's any day, and yours.

Now, Peg,

the worst thing that can happen...

is for us to get panicky.

- So let's not tell Ruthie and Sylvia.

- Not tell them?

They're at union headquarters right now

to see if there's a law against this.

There is a law against it.

There's my phone.

- Don't lose it. It's my only copy.

- Yes, Miss Watson.

Thank you.

- Hi, Kenny.

- Hi.

Mr. Sumner,

here's that file you wanted.

They asked if you'd please return it

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