o, chum," said the blond man, "not my briefcase."

"Hey, look," said the Negro. "What happened, anyway? I remember the
coaster hitting the dip and then nothing, no wind or motion, until I
woke up here. And it's two days later."

"I lost consciousness at the same place," said the New Englander.

"Something was done to knock us out," said the blond man. "Then we must
have been taken off the cars at the end of the ride, and brought here."
He rubbed his chin, which was stubbled with almost invisible whiskers.
"That's impossible, on the face of it," he went on, "but it must be the
truth." He grinned; it was the first time Summersby had seen any of them
smile. "Unless I'm in a hatch," he said.

"Are we in South America? Or Africa?" asked the Negro.

"Why?"

"That hand!"

"Yeah," said the blond man, "that never grew on anything American." The
colored boy looked at him, ready to take offence. "Could it be a freak
gorilla?"

"That size and with two thumbs?" asked the boy. "And what would it be
doing roaming around loose?"

"Could it be a machine?" asked the husband. "A robot?" His wife
screamed, and Summersby got up and went over to the door, getting as far
as possible from them. His stomach was a hard ball of hunger, and he
wished he were a thousand miles away. Anywhere.

"That hand was alive," said the Negro. "I never saw anything like it in
biology, but I'd sure love to dissect it. Did you see those two thumbs?
I don't know any animal that has two thumbs."

"Would you come over, sir?" called the New Englander. Summersby realized
he was talking to him. "We must plan a course of action." Reluctantly
Summersby joined them. "My name is Calvin Full, sir, and this is Mrs.
Full."

Summersby took his hand; it was dry and had a preciseness about its grip
that irritated him. "John Summersby."

"I'm a milk inspector. My wife and I were on our honeymoon," said Full.
"I work through the southern portions of Vermont; that's in the New York
milk shed, you know."

"I didn't know. I'm a forest ranger," said Summersby. Retired, he
thought bitterly, pensioned off to die with a rotten heart. They
couldn't even let a man die on the job, in the woods.

"My work," said Calvin Full, "consists of watching for unsanitary and
unsterile practices, making tuberculin tests, and so forth. I'm afraid
I'm not much good at this sort of emergency."

His wife, who had been looking as if she would scream again, turned to
him. Her almost-pret