did duty as nerves. Tom-Tom himself laid a plate over the orifice and stuck it down with a soldering iron.

"My own brain's armored inside this wooden skull," he commented. "No bullet or axe could reach it. And nobody can hurt the brain of Friday here unless they get at him from above. He's pretty tall to get at from above, eh, Gaspipe?"

"That's right," nodded Gascon, and in his mind rose a picture of the big metal thing bending down, exposing that vulnerable soldered patch. Tom-Tom and he clamped the leads to wrists, ankles and neck.

"Get back to the wall, Gaspipe," commanded Tom-Tom bleakly, and Gascon obeyed. "Now watch. And don't move, or I'll set Friday on you when he wakes up."

Gascon sat down on a long, low bench next to the open door. Tom-Tom noticed his position, and lifted the gun he had carried into the chamber.

"Don't try to run," he warned, "or I'll drill you—maybe in the stomach. And you can lie there and die slowly. When you die there'll be nobody to help Shanny yonder in her little hole in the wall."

"I won't run," promised Gascon. And Tom-Tom switched on more power.

Sparks, a shuddering roar, a quickening of all parts of the machine. The shining hulk on the slab stirred and quivered, like a man troubled by dreams. Tom-Tom gave a brief barking laugh of triumph, brought the mechanism to a howling crescendo of sound and motion, then abruptly shut it down to a murmur.

"Friday! Friday!" he called.

Slowly the metal giant sat up in its bonds.

The bucket-head, with its vacant eyes now gleaming as yellow as Tom-Tom's, turned in that direction. Then, with unthinkable swiftness, the big metal body heaved itself erect, ripping free of the clamps that had been fastened upon it. Up rose two monstrous hands, like baseball gloves of jointed iron. There was a clashing, heavy-footed charge.

Sitting still as death, Gascon again recalled to mind what Tom-Tom had said, what he had heard at medical school.

Tom-Tom gave a prolonged yell, and threw up the gun to fire. The explosions rattled and rolled in the narrow confinement of the room. Bullets spattered the armor-plated breast of the oncoming giant. One knocked away a gleaming eye. The towering thing did not falter in its dash. Tom-Tom tried to spring down too late. The 

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