memory.

Mrs. Sawtelle darted back and lifted the needle, hurriedly, so it grated against the disk.

"I made a mistake," she said. "That's some modernistic music or other. Hervey, switch on the light. Here's the record I wanted."

"It sounded awful, whatever it was," her husband observed.

Norman had identified his memory. It was of an Australian bull-roarer a colleague had once demonstrated for him. The curved slat of wood, whirled at the end of a cord, made exactly the same sound. The aborigines used it in their magic making.

But now his own voice was coming out of the amplifier, and he had an odd sense of jerking back in time.

"Surprised?" she questioned coyly. "It's that talk on civilian defense you gave the students last week. We had a mike spotted by the speaker's rostrum—I suppose you thought it was for amplification—and we made a sneak recording, as we call it. We cut it down here."

She indicated the heavier, cement-based turntable for making recordings.

"We can do all sorts of things down here," she babbled on. "Mix all sorts of sound. Music against voices. And—"

It was hard for Norman to appear even slightly pleased. He knew his reasons were no more sensible than those of a savage afraid someone will learn his secret name, yet all the same he disliked the idea of Evelyn Sawtelle monkeying around with his voice. Like her dully malicious, small-socketed eyes, it suggested a prying for hidden weaknesses. And then that talk about mixing sounds—somehow it did not set good with him.

What it all boiled down to was that he detested the woman.

Rather brusquely, he excused himself.

"We'll see you tonight," Evelyn called after him. It sounded like, "You won't get rid of me."

Back at the office, Norman put in a good hour's work on his notes. Then, getting up to switch on the light, his glance happened to fall on the window.

After a few moments, he jerked away and darted to the closet, to get his field glasses.

Evidently someone had a very obscure sense of humor to perpetrate such a complicated practical joke.

 Prev. P 24/131 next