chloroform-soaked cotton.

He whipped the wad at and upon the triangular face. The man tried to writhe away but Gascon, heavier and harder-muscled than he, shoved him against the wall, where the back of his head could be clamped and held. Struggling, the fellow breathed deeply, again, again. His frantic flounderings suddenly went feeble. Gascon judged the dose sufficient, and let go his holds. The man subsided limply and Gascon, still holding to his sleeve, dragged the right hand out of the coat. Dropping his wad of cotton, he took up the big pistol.

"I'm afraid, Gaspipe," said a shrill, wise voice he should know better than anyone in the world, "that that gun won't really help you a nickel's worth."

Gascon spun around. A moment ago he had put his hand on the doorknob. When he had turned to leap at the triangle-faced man, he had pulled the door open. Now he could see inside a bare, officelike room, a big sturdy desk and a figure just beyond; a figure calm and assured, but so tiny, so grotesque.

"Come in, Gaspipe," commanded Tom-Tom, the dummy.

Tom-Tom did not look as Gascon had remembered him. The checked jacket was filthy and frayed, and in the breast of it was a round black hole the size of a fingertip. The paint had been flaked away from the comical face, one broad ear was half broken off, the wig was tousled and matted. And the eyes goggled no more in the clownish fashion that had been made so famous in publicity photographs. They crouched deep in Tom-Tom's wooden face and glowed greenly, like the eyes of a meat-eating animal.

"You're the only man I ever expected to figure me out, Gaspipe," said Tom-Tom. "And even you can't do much about it, can you? Put away the gun. I've been shot at and shot at, and it does nothing but make little holes like this."

He tapped the black rent in his jacket-front with a jointed forefinger.

"As a matter of fact, I was glad to see your notice in the agony column. I think I'd have hunted you up, anyway. You see, we make a fine team, Gaspipe. There are things we can still do for each other, but you must be reasonable."

"I'm not here to let you make fun of me," said Gascon. "You're just a little freak, brought to life by the chance power evolved by a cracked old intelligence. Once I puzzled it out, I knew that I needn't be afraid. You can't do anything to me."

"No?" 

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