nd his neck. With scrupulous care, the driver extracted one bill.
"Keep the change," Charley said. "And thanks for the conversation."

He stepped out, hooking the suitcase to his harness as he did so. And
there, in front of him, was a small white-faced stone building. The cab
roared away behind him, and Charley started across the sidewalk.

Now, in New York, he had found out what he was going to ask Professor
Lightning. And it was the one thing he hadn't thought possible.

* * * * *

One flight of stairs led straight up from the doorway, and Charley took
it slowly. At the top was a great wooden door with a brass plate
screwed to it, and on the brass plate a single name was incised: _Dr.
E. C. Schinsake_. There was nothing else. Charley slipped the shoe off
his right foot, and rang the bell.

A voice inside said: "Who's there? Who is it, please?"

"It's me, professor," Charley called. He slipped the sandal back on.
"Charley de Milo. I came to see you."

"Charley--" There was a second of silence. "Charley de Milo?" Professor
Lightning's grating voice said. "From the show?" Footsteps came across a
room, and the door swung open. Professor Lightning stood inside, just as
tall and white-haired as ever, and Charley blinked, looking at him, and
past him at the room.

People didn't live in rooms like that, he thought. They were only for
the movies, or maybe for millionaires, but not for people, real people
that Charley himself knew to talk to.

The furniture--a couch, a few chairs and tables, a phonograph--was
glitteringly new and expensive-looking. The walls were freshly painted
in soft, bright colors, and pictures hung on them, strange-looking
pictures Charley couldn't make sense out of. But they looked right,
somehow, in that room.

On the floor there was a rug deeper and softer-looking than any Charley
had ever seen. And, away to the right, two floor-length windows
sparkled, hung with great drapes and shining in the daylight. There were
flowers growing outside the sills, just visible above the window frames.
Charley gulped and took a breath.

"Come in," Professor Lightning said. "Come in." In the midst of the riot
of wealth, the professor didn't seem to have changed at all. He was
still wearing the same ratty robe he'd worn in the carnival, his hair
was still as uncombed. It was only on second glance that Charley saw the
look in his eyes. Professor Lightning was Dr. Schinsake now; t