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nasturtiums. 'No calcium for you, my boy, no more calcium for you. Never again shall I eat foods with calcium or other bone-fortifying minerals. I'll eat for one of us, not both, my lad.'
        'One hundred and fifty pounds,' he said, the following week to his wife. 'Do you see how I've changed?'
        'For the better,' said Clarisse. 'You were always a little plump for your height, darling.' She stroked his chin. 'I like your face, it's so much nicer, the lines of it are so firm and strong now.'
        'They're not my lines, they're his, damn him! You mean to say you like him better than you like me?' he demanded indignantly.
        'Him? Who's ‘ him '?'
        In the parlour mirror, beyond Clarisse, his skull smiled back at him behind his fleshy grimace of hatred and despair.
        Fuming, he popped malt tablets into his mouth. This was one way of gaining weight when you couldn't keep other foods down. Clarisse noticed the malt pellets. 'But, darling, really, you don't have to regain the weight for me,' she said.
        'Oh, shut up!' he felt like saying.
        She came to him and sat down and made him lie so his head was in her lap. 'Darling,' she said. 'I've watched you lately. You're so — badly off. You don't say anything, but you look — hunted. You toss in bed at night. Maybe you should go to a psychiatrist. But I think I can tell you everything he would say. I've put it all together, from hints you've let escape you. I can tell you that you and your skeleton are one and the same, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. United you stand, divided you fall. If you two fellows can't get along like an old married couple in the future, go back and see Dr. Burleigh. But first , relax. You're in a vicious circle, the more you worry, the more your bones stick out, the more your bones stick out, the more you worry. After all, now, who picked this fight — you or that anonymous entity you claim is lurking around behind your alimentary canal?'
        He closed his eyes. ' I did. I guess I did. Oh, my darling, I love you so.'
        'You rest now,' she said softly. 'Rest and forget.'
       
        Mr. Harris felt buoyed up for half a day, then he began to sag again. It was all very well to say everything was imagination, but this particular skeleton, by God, was fighting back.
        Harris set out for M. Munigant's office late in the day. Walking for half an hour until he found the address, he caught sight of the name Mr. Munigant initialled in ancient, flaking gold on a glass plate outside the building. Then, his bones seemed to explode from their moorings, blasted and erupted with pain. He could hardly see in his wet, pain-filled eyes. So violent were the pains that he staggered away. When he opened his eyes again he had rounded a corner. M. Munigant's office was out of sight.
        The pains ceased.
        M. Munigant was the man to help him. He must be! If the sight of his gilt-lettered name could cause so titanic a reaction in the deepness of Harris's body, why, of course M. Munigant must be just the man.
        But, not today. Each time he tried to return to that office, the terrible pains laid him low. Perspiring, he had to give up, and stagger into a cocktail bar for respite.
        Moving across the dim room of the cocktail lounge, he wondered briefly if a lot of blame couldn't be put on M. Munigant's shoulders; after all, it was Munigant who'd first drawn such specific attention to his skeleton, and brought home the entire psychological impact of it! Could M. Munigant be using him for some nefarious purpose? But what purpose? Silly to even suspect him. Just a little doctor. Trying to be helpful. Munigant and his jar of breadsticks. Ridiculous. M. Munigant was okay, okay.
       
        There was a sight within the cocktail lounge to give him hope. A large fat man, round as a butterball, stood drinking consecutive beers at the bar. Now there was a successful man. Harris repressed a desire to