ing the big bodies and heads with those
gargantuan fists. It sounded like a brawl between elephants. Watkins
swiveled round to watch. Mrs. Full said to someone--Watkins heard her
distinctly in a lull in the ruckus--"If these are scientists, what are
the common people like?" For the first time that day he grinned. He had
stopped playing the organ. The other scientists had gathered around the
fight and were uttering strange cries, like wild geese honking. Cheering
them on? he wondered.

Adam came over. "Mr. Watkins," he said, "could we have been wrong about
them? Do you think a scientist would act like that?"

"They sure seem to be a quarrelsome race, Adam," he said, "they're not
noticing what we do. Suppose you go look for a way out."

"We want to get away as soon as we can," nodded the boy. "Dangerous
around here!" He ran down the hall.

The giants arose and straightened their clothing. They had patched up
their argument in the midst of fighting over it. The leader walked
toward a tall device of pipes and boards and steps, motioning Mrs. Full
to follow.

Apparently Watkins had been forgotten. He took his briefcase off his
lap, where he had held it all the time he played, and dropped it to the
floor. Then he hung by his hands and let go. He picked up the case and
went to investigate the room.

Before he had done more than glimpse the enormous door, he was picked up
kitten-fashion by a scientist, who carried him off, dangling and
swearing, to another infernal machine.

For a couple of hours they were put through paces, all of them;
sometimes one man would be working a gadget while all the scientists and
humans watched him, at other periods they would each be hard at work
doing something the result of which they had no conception of.

* * * * *

Several of the machines could be figured: the pink maze, one or two
others; and Watkins had at least a theory on the organ. The sleek
modernistic machinery which directed the airship was plain enough. There
were certain designs and arrangements to follow that flew it up and down
the room. They were hard to memorize but Mrs. Full and the somber
ranger, Summersby, became adept at them.

Then there were the others....

There was a remote control device that played "music," weird haunting
all-but-harmonies that sounded worst when the creatures appeared most
pleased, and earned the punishment stool or a brutal cuffing for the
operator when he