y
resembled a goldfish, but which, of course, was nothing of the sort.
Whatever it was, though, it kept growing brighter and brighter each time
Francis added another attachment, and had already attained a degree of
incandescence so intense that he had been forced to don cobalt-blue
goggles in order to look at it. The date was the First of April,
1962--April Fool's Day.

Actually, the idea for this particular machine had not originated in
Francis' brain, nor had the parts for it originated in his
kitchen-workshop. When he had gone out to get the milk that morning he
had found a box on his doorstep, and in the box he had found the
goldfish bowl and the attachments, plus a sheet of instructions
entitled, DIRECTIONS FOR ASSEMBLING A MULTIPLE MOeBIUS-KNOT DYNAMO.
Francis thought that a machine capable of tying knots would be pretty
keen, and he had carried the box into the kitchen and set to work
forthwith.

He now had but one more part to go, and he proceeded to screw it into
place. Then he stepped back to admire his handiwork. Simultaneously his
handiwork went into action. The attachments began to quiver and to emit
sparks; the globe glowed, and the goldfishlike object in its center
began to dart this way and that as though striking at flies. A blue halo
formed above the machine and began to rotate. Faster and faster it
rotated, till finally its gaseous components separated and flew off in a
hundred different directions. Three things happened then in swift
succession: Francis' back doorway took on a bluish cast, the sheet of
instructions vanished, and the machine began to melt.

A moment later he heard a whining sound on his back doorstep.

Simultaneously all of the residents of Valleyview heard whining sounds
on _their_ back doorsteps.

Naturally everybody went to find out about the whining.

* * * * *

The sign was a new one. At the most it was no more than six months old.
YOU ARE ENTERING THE VILLAGE OF VALLEYVIEW, it said. PLEASE DRIVE
CAREFULLY--WE ARE FOND OF OUR DOGS.

Philip Myles drove carefully. He was fond of dogs, too.

Night had tiptoed in over the October countryside quite some time ago,
but the village of Valleyview had not turned on so much as a single
streetlight--nor, apparently, any other kind of light. All was in
darkness, and not a soul was to be seen. Philip began to suspect that he
had entered a ghost town, and when his headlights darted across a dark
inters