excruciating, the way he is retching and gasping for breath. We may consider ourselves lucky he didn't aim the weapon at us. I shudder at the thought."

Harl was shuddering, too. They were indeed fortunate they were not the object of the force Joe had unleashed, or they would probably now be nothing but lifeless hulks, rotting on the weird world that had betrayed them. He could not understand how words could cause such havoc, but undoubtedly they could, for wasn't the pitiful Thing before them even now contorted with the paralyzing torture he had accidentally inflicted upon himself? Harl knew he could never forget the gruesome drama he was now witnessing. Why, even the creature they had encountered at the citadel of science must have been a victim of a Joke, for he had acted in the same strange manner.

"That's the only possible explanation, Harl," Kir-Um was speaking again. "This Earthling has discovered a way to assemble words in such a formation as to cause a violent agitation in whatever they are directed upon. I suspect, Harl, if this genius had received the full force of that Joke, it would have shaken him apart, utterly and completely. In other words, it would have decomposed his atoms and spread them from here to Dibble-Ibble knows where. Now, we must learn how to form these word patterns, thus to use them against our foe in the coming invasion. Creature, have you a treatise on Jokes?"

Joe ceased his giggling and thought a moment. Yes, he did have a treatise on jokes and they would find it in his desk upstairs. Be sure and not touch his perpetual-motion machine, though, for it was delicately balanced.

Kir-Um immediately dispatched Harl to procure the valuable document and waited impatiently till his companion returned. He accepted the book reverently and placed it safely in an inside pocket.

"Good," he muttered. "Now, creature, you will forget all that took place here."

Joe nodded dully. "I understand. You guys are strictly from dreams. I won't remember a thing about you when I come out of my coma."

The Martians walked to the door and turned to stare triumphantly at their strange companion of the evening. There was a slight twinge of pity in Harl's heart, as he thought of this boy as nothing but a bunch of jumbled atoms flying helter-skelter through the universe, all because he had made a Joke.

"You will awaken an hour after we leave," Kir-Um directed.

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