man could not believe in, though he stood upon
its floor and gazed round-eyed, with sweating lips and shaking hands,
upon its size, its devices for unknown purposes, its impossible
inhabitant!

The thing was twelve feet tall. Was it a machine? He had seen machines
in the _revistas_ and the cinema, looking much like this one, a clumsy
copy of a man moving, speaking, tearing people to pieces. There was also
King Kong, who resembled this thing.

If it was not alive, it moved very creditably. The gray-furred legs were
long and thin, placed on the sides of the body at the waist; the arms,
much thicker than the legs, swung very low, and must be fully eight feet
long. It was backing from him slowly, holding out one hand--six fingers
and two thumbs, _demonio!_--with the green stick. That stick stung like
a bee when it touched you.

The monster was already a good distance away. Porfirio cast his eyes
slyly to one side, the other. There was a complication of machinery so
great that even a teacher of mechanics would be dismayed.

There! A hole between two pink walls. He glanced once at the thing,
standing now with its impossible face turned down to him, and then he
ran for the hole.

It was after him with a short cry, but he reached the hole and scuttled
through. Four paths faced him. What a time for decisions! He took the
left-hand path, went round several turns, came to two more openings. The
pink walls were smooth and featureless, well over his head so that he
could not tell where he was. He ran like the mouse in the game next to
his chili stand, the game in which suckers bet on which escape--the red,
green, blue or white--the mouse would choose. Paths opened and Porfirio
plunged on, losing his sense of direction, becoming more terrified as he
went. His famished guts dragged him down, made him a weak frightened
mouse indeed.

He panted past two doorways and abruptly, like the flashing of a
pigeon's wing, the greenstick shot down before him, held in that
monstrous gray hand!

The stick appeared and disappeared, herding him, chivvying him from
place to place, all places looking alike, till finally the great room
lay again before his eyes. Whimpering, he stepped out of the pink maze
and leaned against the wall, his chest and belly heaving. He was done.
Let it murder him. A man could not run forever.

The brute stood over him. Cautiously it brought its face down to peer.
Its eyes were set in deep pits, there was a hole be