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yours. I want to meet her.”
    Jakie laughed and got up, slapping me on the back. “I’ll persuade him, Mr. Jones. We’ll be there, don’t worry.” He was a big fellow, that Feltnor. He had me rushed out of there before I knew what wenton. Cornering me in the corridor, he said, “Come on Eddie—be a sport. Don’t queer that party. It means a lot to me. Claire has been acting a little peculiar lately and that party ought to fix the trouble. No kidding, Eddie—you’ve got to do it.”
    “I’ll see what Maria says,” I muttered, and headed for home.
    Maria said she didn’t like the idea. We had a long argument about it. I pointed out that it was formal, that it was a business affair, that the eight people who were there knew each other very little and had nothing but the broadest interests in common, and that anyway I couldn’t avoid it. It was orders. I also mentioned the fact that Jakie wanted me to do it, and I was a good friend of his. Maria’s arguments were all old stuff to me, but for one new one. She was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to stand it. When she had been in more or less constant contact with people, she was conditioned to the influx of possessions. Now it was different. She feared it. It was months since she had been through it; she was afraid of what it might do to her. But I had my way, and Friday night found us walking into Jones’s place in Queens Village.
    It was quite a layout. Jones had a nice income and used it. Big house, big rooms, big butler. We were the last to arrive. We got rid of our coats and were shown into the library, where cocktails were being served. I stopped at the door and looked around the room. Over in a corner Jones was talking to a stout old apple who seemed all jowls and boiled shirt. Shanaman, I surmised. Talking uninterestedly with Jones’s slightly washed-out wife, was Claire Feltner. I knew her well; she hung around the studio a lot. A nasty thought occurred to me; I noticed Claire there many a time when Jakie was out. Jones always seemed to be around at the time. I began to see why Jakie had been so anxious to bring Claire and Jones into the same room. He wanted to watch them. That was bad.
    I rescued Jakie from the voluminous feminine counterpart of Shanaman. The network manager’s wife had poor Feltner in a corner and was pounding his ear frighteningly with an account of her husband’s metabolism.
    Introductions were made all around, and I left Maria with Jakiewhile I joined Jones and Shanaman. The talk was general and too loud. Just about then I began to wish I hadn’t come. That went on all the time I was there. I disliked particularly this business of our being in that big room free to wander from person to person for Lord knows how long until dinner was served. In a matter of minutes Maria could stumble across one of her little
poltergeists
, and then—well, in a matter of minutes Maria did.
    Shanaman was building up to a terrific climax in an unfunny story, when I saw Maria across the room from me, looking from Shanaman to Mrs. Jones and back again. There was something about her stance, her eyes, that told me she was fighting the thing. I broke away from Shanaman as fast as I could. Not fast enough. Maria got to Mrs. Jones before I did, sat down beside her, began talking swiftly. As I got there, Mrs. Jones rose, glaring at Shanaman, and went over to her husband.
    “What goes on?” I asked anxiously.
    “Oh, Eddie, it happened again.” She would have cried if I hadn’t caught her hands, squeezed them until they hurt. “Shanaman plans to put a network crew in your station if he takes it over. Everyone will lose his job, except you, Eddie!”
    “And you told that to Mrs. Jones?”
    “Yes—don’t you see? She suspected it, and Shanaman knew he was going to do it! I couldn’t help myself, Eddie!”
    “That’s all right, kid,” I whispered. “No hair off our necks.” I watched the Joneses. It seemed to me that he didn’t believe his