in his face.

Taking a long-bladed knife, he attacked the small mechanisms inside the globe. He probed, twisted and jabbed but they seemed indestructible.

Furious, he held it underwater with the hope that water would short-circuit "electrical contacts" if there were any.

When that didn't work, he beat it with a hammer, kicked it, threw it about the room and as a last result, dropped it from the window.

It bounced off the sidewalk fourteen floors below and attracted attention, but a few minutes later he was once more sitting in the chair and watching the sickeningly familiar ruby as it rolled across the sickeningly familiar table.

He stared at the telephone. If only it would ring; if only someone would call him and break the monotony! But that was impossible. At the beginning of each cycle, all physical things and events were exactly as they had been....

Telephone!

He could use it to break the monotony—he could phone all his friends!

He telephoned all his friends and talked with them for numerous ten-minute intervals that totaled days. Because they were always unaware of the previous cycles, his repeated phone calls never annoyed them. Sometimes he told them about the time trap but it was beyond their comprehension and they always thought he was drunk, so he learned not to mention it.

When he tired of talking to his friends, he started at the front of the telephone directory and began calling every name. He made dates with girls he'd never seen, memorized marvelous sales talks and sold non-existent vacuum cleaners and cars. Sometimes he pretended to be the master of ceremonies on a quiz program and when someone answered a difficult question, he told them they had just won a dollar. The various reactions he received were amusing and broke the monotony, but after a few days, even that became boring.

He tried to leave the hotel's fourteenth floor, but discovered that the elevator boy was not on the job at that particular time. Although he ran to the elevator at the beginning of numerous cycles and pushed the down button, the indicator needle never moved during the ten minutes.

He used the stairs at the end of the corridor with the hope of reaching another floor and meeting someone. To see someone or speak to someone in person 

 Prev. P 6/11 next