The show lasted for nearly an hour. There were policemen everywhere, and firemen everywhere, and neighbors milling around down at the corner, where the police had roped the block off, and occasionally Mr. Higgins would stick his rifle out a window and shoot at somebody. The police used loudspeakers to tell Higgins he might as well give up, they had the place surrounded and could eventually starve him out anyway. Higgins used his own good lungs to shout obscenities back and challenge anyone present to hand-to-hand combat.

The police fired tear gas shells at the house, but it was a windy day and all the windows in the Higgins house were either open or broken. Higgins was able to throw all the shells back out of the house again.

The show lasted for nearly an hour. Then it ended, suddenly and dramatically.

Higgins had showed himself to the Zoomar lens again, for the purpose of shooting either the camera or its operator. All at once he yelped and threw the rifle away. The rifle bounced onto the porch roof, slithered down to the edge, hung for a second against the drain, and finally fell barrel first onto the lawn.

Meanwhile, Higgins was running through the house, shouting like a wounded bull. He thundered down the stairs and out, hollering, to fall into the arms of the waiting police.

They had trouble holding him. At first they thought he was actually trying to get away, but then one of them heard what it was he was shouting: "My hands! My hands!"

They looked at his hands. The palms and the palm-side of the fingers were red and blistering, from what looked like severe burns. There was another burn on his right cheek and another one on his right shoulder.

Higgins, thoroughly chastened and bewildered, was led away for burn ointment and jail. The television crew went on back to Manhattan. The neighbors went home and telephoned their friends.

On-duty policemen had been called in from practically all of the precincts in Brooklyn. Among them was Detective-Sergeant William Stevenson. Stevenson frowned thoughtfully at Higgins as that unhappy individual was led away, and then strolled over to look at the rifle. He touched the stock, and it was somewhat warm but that was all.

He picked it up and turned it around. There, on the other side of the stock, burned into the wood, were the crudely-shaped letters, "The Scorpion."

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