in history all by itself. I'll see you ...
after I get the real job done."

He heard the soft-shoe rhythm all the way down the corridor, out of the
hospital, and clear back to the city.

* * * * *

Clocker's bank balance was sick, the circulation of his tip sheet gone.
But he didn't worry about it; there were bigger problems.

He studied the newspapers before even giving himself time to think. The
news was as bad as usual. He could feel the heat of fission, close his
eyes and see all the cities and farms in the world going up in a
blinding cloud. As far as he was concerned, Barnes and Harding and the
rest weren't working fast enough; he could see doom sprinting in half a
field ahead of the completion of the record.

The first thing he should have done was recapture the circulation of the
tip sheet. The first thing he actually did do was write the story of his
experience just as it had happened, and send it to a magazine.

When he finally went to work on his sheet, it was to cut down the racing
data to a few columns and fill the rest of it with warnings.

"This is what you want?" the typesetter asked, staring at the copy
Clocker turned in. "You _sure_ this is what you want?"

"Sure I'm sure. Set it and let's get the edition out early. I'm doubling
the print order."

"Doubling?"

"You heard me."

When the issue was out, Clocker waited around the main newsstands on
Broadway. He watched the customers buy, study unbelievingly, and wander
off looking as if all the tracks in the country had burned down
simultaneously.

Doc Hawkins found him there.

"Clocker, my boy! You have no idea how anxious we were about you. But
you're looking fit, I'm glad to say."

"Thanks," Clocker said abstractedly. "I wish I could say the same about
you and the rest of the world."

Doc laughed. "No need to worry about us. We'll muddle along somehow."

"You think so, huh?"

"Well, if the end is approaching, let us greet it at the Blue Ribbon. I
believe we can still find the lads there."

They were, and they greeted Clocker with gladness and drinks.
Diplomatically, they made only the most delicate references to the
revamping job Clocker had done on his tip sheet.

"It's just like opening night, that's all," comforted Arnold Wilson
Wyle. "You'll get back into your routine pretty soon."

"I don't want to," said Clocker pugnaciously. "Handicapping is only a
way to get people to read what I _really_