e. "My post-nasal drip is missing, too. Do
you suppose my sinus trouble is cleared up?"

"That's what must have been happening those two days we were out," said
Watkins, knocking ash from his cigarette. "We were put through a
hospital or something. I feel good, even if I'm damned hungry."

Summersby looked from one to another, detesting them; against his will,
against sanity and decency that fought for recognition, he detested
them. He had a heart for which there was no help, a heart no two-day
period of miraculous cures could touch. Their puny ailments had been
relieved, but he was still at the slow, listless task of dying.

"Listen," said Watkins jubilantly, "whoever or whatever brought us here,
it's a cinch they don't mean to harm us. They wouldn't mend us if they
were going to hurt us, would they?"

"In two days," said Adam, nodding hard. "Two days! How could they do
it?"

There was an air of near-gaiety about them that repelled Summersby. In a
desperate rebellion against these boons handed out to everyone but
himself, he tried to hurt them. "What do you do to a duck before you
cook it? Clean it. Think that over."

Adam Pierce looked at him levelly. "No, sir. If that duck has sinus
trouble or bad eyes, you don't have to fix that up before you eat it.
No, sir."

"What about the Mexican?" Summersby asked. "What's happened to him?"

Then the wall slid open again and they all started forward; Summersby
looked after them bitterly, feeling the resentment drain out and leave
only the old hopelessness, the apathetic disregard of everything but
death.

II

Porfirio Villa had known from the first that this adventure of his was a
mistake. His wife had told him to stay off the roller coaster, but he
had sneered. What could happen? The people always got off again,
laughing and wiping their brows. He had the bad burn on his left hand,
caused by an accidental smacking of the steam table in a rage at his
fool of a helper;--that idiot who now had had charge of the stand for
two days! _lodo feo!_--and so, enforced to a vacation, he must step into
the cars and go crawling up that terrible incline, giggling nervously,
and then rush madly down the other side. Dreaming is better than doing;
he should have stayed in his chili stand and dreamed of the ride.

_Por Dios!_ What a terror the rising, what a discomfort the drop, what a
fearful thing the disappearance of the park and the awakening in this
place ... this place a