a muffled
voice he did not recognize, saying that he was merely taking a nap. He
was surprised when he noted the darkness of night in the room. He had
received the letter at two in the afternoon, and he realized that he was
sick.

Then the "$8.00" began to smoulder under his lids again, and he returned
himself to servitude. But he grew cunning. There was no need for him to
wander through his mind. He had been a fool. He pulled a lever and made
his mind revolve about him, a monstrous wheel of fortune, a
merry-go-round of memory, a revolving sphere of wisdom. Faster and
faster it revolved, until its vortex sucked him in and he was flung
whirling through black chaos.

Quite naturally he found himself at a mangle, feeding starched cuffs. But
as he fed he noticed figures printed in the cuffs. It was a new way of
marking linen, he thought, until, looking closer, he saw "$3.85" on one
of the cuffs. Then it came to him that it was the grocer's bill, and
that these were his bills flying around on the drum of the mangle. A
crafty idea came to him. He would throw the bills on the floor and so
escape paying them. No sooner thought than done, and he crumpled the
cuffs spitefully as he flung them upon an unusually dirty floor. Ever
the heap grew, and though each bill was duplicated a thousand times, he
found only one for two dollars and a half, which was what he owed Maria.
That meant that Maria would not press for payment, and he resolved
generously that it would be the only one he would pay; so he began
searching through the cast-out heap for hers. He sought it desperately,
for ages, and was still searching when the manager of the hotel entered,
the fat Dutchman. His face blazed with wrath, and he shouted in
stentorian tones that echoed down the universe, "I shall deduct the cost
of those cuffs from your wages!" The pile of cuffs grew into a mountain,
and Martin knew that he was doomed to toil for a thousand years to pay
for them. Well, there was nothing left to do but kill the manager and
burn down the laundry. But the big Dutchman frustrated him, seizing him
by the nape of the neck and dancing him up and down. He danced him over
the ironing tables, the stove, and the mangles, and out into the wash-
room and over the wringer and washer. Martin was danced until his teeth
rattled and his head ached, and he marvelled that the Dutchman was so
strong.

And then he found himself before the mangle, this time rece