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getting goose bumps-“
    “If you’d lived with Roger Munson for twenty-three years the only thing that would give you goose bumps would be having to go to the bathroom in the night and not being able to find your bathrobe. How did we get started on politics, anyway? What I want to know is where that map came from. John Architrave never drew a plan in his life. He’d just wander around till his bunions began to twitch and then tell his men to start digging.”
    “Hazel, you’re right! I wondered about that, too. As a guess, I’d say the plan came from the town surveyor’s office and the dots were added by somebody who wanted it on the record that tests had been duly performed at certain locations. Doesn’t that sound like a typically McNasterish stunt to you? Look, Hazel, is there any chance of pumping Margery Streph a little? Can’t you happen to drop in with a cutting from your piggyback plant or something, and get her talking?”
    “Oh, I’d have no trouble getting Margery talking.” Hazel permitted herself a ladylike snicker. “The problem is, I’d have to wait till she gets back from Calgary. Jim was going there on business, so she went along. That’s why we had them to dinner between trips, as a sort of hail-and-farewell party.”
    “Oh, rats! Then I’ll have to think of something else.”
    “Do. What I’ve got to think about is what sort of meal I can throw together in three minutes flat.” Hazel made for the door.
    “Thanks for the sherry, Dittany. After I’ve fed Roger and got him into a good mood, I’ll try to joggle his memory and see if he has any idea what Jim Streph was getting at.”
    Dittany refrained from smiling. Roger did something extremely technical with computers for a large engineering firm over near Scottsbeck. She couldn’t imagine his ever having an idea that wasn’t too complex for any layman to understand. By the time he’d worked out a viable program and run it through the electronic jungle, the Enchanted Mountain could be one solid mass of blacktop and neon. Why hadn’t Hazel had presence of mind enough to marry a member of the town council instead of a walking transistor circuit?
    She ate the few sweet meal biscuits that were left on the plate, carried the tray with the used wineglasses back to the kitchen, wondered about supper and decided she wasn’t quite ready after all those biscuits, then from force of habit wandered into her workroom and sat down at the typewriter. Since her appetite was temporarily spoiled anyway, she might as well get on with Arethusa’s inevitable dueling scene.
    Sir Percy tensed the muscles of his finely molded jaw. He was about to pink that rotter Baron Blackavise smack in the right radial extensor and get blood all over his ruffles. Instead, Dittany was astonished to find herself rattling out a scene in which one Andrew McNaster got run plunk through the snuffbox with lethal effect. Maybe she’d better get some solid food inside her, at that.
    She fried up a panful of chicken livers with lots of garlic Gram had always grown it around the roses to keep the bugs away-made herself a green salad, toasted a chunk of her homemade bread, and turned on the television because it was so dismal eating alone.
    But the bombings, earthquakes, airplane crashes and other minor diversions of the outside world held little interest in comparison to what was happening here in Lobelia Falls, and when the macho type in the plaid sports jacket began reeling off the hockey scores, she got up and shut off the set. It was almost dark now. Without the light from the picture tube, she could hardly see her plate. The Enchanted Mountain was still plainly visible, though, through the big south-facing kitchen window.
    They’d always sat here at mealtimes when there wasn’t company, around the golden oak table that had had all its varnish scrubbed off ages ago, with the black iron cookstove warm at their backs in winter as it was warming Dittany now. First there’d