know. The gadget went wrong—from some standpoints. High-frequency waves, it was. They went through and through me. Should have been inaudible, but I could hear them, or rather—well, actually I could see them. That’s what I mean about my brain being scrambled. And after that, I could see and hear the Martians. They’ve geared themselves so they work efficiently on ordinary brains, and mine isn’t ordinary any more. They can’t hypnotize me, either. They can command me, but I needn’t obey—now. I hope they don’t suspect. Maybe they do. Yes, I guess they do.”

“How can you tell?”

“The way they look at me.”

“How do they look at you?” asked the brown man, as he began to reach for a pencil and then changed his mind. He took a drink instead. “Well? What are they like?”

“I’m not sure. I can see them, all right, but only when they’re dressed up.”

“Okay, okay,” the brown man said patiently. “How do they look, dressed up?”

“Just like anybody, almost. They dress up in—in human skins. Oh, not real ones, imitations. Like the Katzenjammer Kids zipped into crocodile suits. Undressed—I don’t know. I’ve never seen one. Maybe they’re invisible even to me, then, or maybe they’re just camouflaged. Ants or owls or rats or bats or—”

“Or anything,” the brown man said hastily.

“Thanks. Or anything, of course. But when they’re dressed up like humans—like that one who was sitting next to you awhile ago, when I told you not to look—”

“That one was invisible, I gather?”

“Most of the time they are, to everybody. But once in a while, for some reason, they—”

“Wait,” the brown man objected. “Make sense, will you? They dress up in human skins and then sit around invisible?”

“Only now and then. The human skins are perfectly good imitations. Nobody can tell the difference. It’s that third eye that gives them away. When they keep it closed, you’d never guess it was there. When they want to open it, they go invisible—like that. Fast. When I see somebody with a third eye, right in the middle of his forehead, I know he’s a Martian and invisible, and I pretend not to notice him.”

“Uh-huh,” the brown man said. “Then for all you know, I’m one of your visible 

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