the sky. A black cloud condensed
over the street, and a forked tongue of lightning flashed from it.
Every woman within a quarter of a mile felt the hot electrical force
of the male principle. I dived into the Times Square subway entrance
and sprinted down the stairs. There was a men's washroom at the end of
the platform.

I heard the wild tumult of pursuit behind me. I pushed open the door.
A man was there washing his hands. I strangled him, tore off his
clothes, and put them on myself. Hastily, I twisted my face about so
that I looked like an entirely different person. I opened the door and
started walking slowly back down the platform.

A platoon of policemen with drawn guns was sprinting down the platform
towards me. They were followed by a yelling mob of civilians which
included hundreds of women. They swept by me. I was safe, but
shivering with fear, Excellency. I was spent. I couldn't have mustered
up a heat ray strong enough to warm the end of my nose.

I stumbled around the corner and away from that neighborhood. Then I
went into the first restaurant I saw, and gorged. After a five dollar
plank steak, three glasses of milk, one glass of beer, and apple pie a
la mode I was still ravenous; still energy-minus.

I went a block up the street, into another restaurant, and bolted down
exactly the same meal again. Strength started to flow slowly through
my veins. After one more meal in still another restaurant, my
confidence returned.

The newspapers handled the affair with amazing restraint. The facts
brought in by their reporters naturally sounded fantastic to the
editors, so they rearranged them to "make sense." The reticence of the
authorities, particularly the F.B.I., helped to convert what might
have caused a national panic into just an unusually spectacular chase
after an escaped murderer. The burning cars were laid to hooliganism
on the part of the bystanders. The people who got burned, so the
stories explained, were hurt by the gasoline explosions of the burning
cars. The mass hysteria of the women was caused by the excitement. The
papers said that the steel necktie worn by my stooge at the theatre
had to be cut off by a water-cooled electric saw. They said that
however I did it, it was a clever trick.

The next few days, Your Excellency, were the most difficult of my stay
here. I knew that the full power of not only the F.B.I., but of the
whole national government, would be concentrated to destroy me.