Shannon Cole leaned back in her own chair, sighing because she had not enough breath to laugh any more. "I never get enough of Tom-Tom," she vowed between gasps. "We've been broadcasting together for two years now, and he's still number one in my heart. Ben, how do you ever manage--" "Shanny," drawled the voice that was Tom-Tom's, "this idiot Ben Gascon has something to say. He wants me to front for him--but why do I always have to do the talking while he gets the profit. Speak up, Gaspipe--who's got your tongue this time, the cat, or the cat?" Shannon Cole looked at the ventriloquist, and suddenly stopped laughing. Her face was pale, as his had gone red. She folded her slender hands in her lap, and her eyes were all for Gascon, though it was as if Tom-Tom still spoke: "I'll be John Alden," vowed Tom-Tom with shrill decision. "I'll talk up for this big yokel--I always do, don't I, Shanny? As Gaspipe's personal representative--engaged at enormous expense--I want to put before you a proposition. One in which I'm interested. After all, I should have a say as to who will be my--well, my step-mother--" "It won't work!" came the sudden, savage voice of Ben Gascon. Rising, he abruptly tossed Tom-Tom upon a divan. Shannon Cole, too, was upon her feet. "Ben!" she quavered. "Why, Ben!" "I've done the most foolish thing a ventriloquist could do," he flung out. "Well--if you were really serious, you didn't need to clown. You think it was fair to me?" He shook his head. "Tom-Tom's done so much of my saucy talking for me these past years that I thought I'd use him to get out what I was afraid to tell you myself," he confessed wretchedly. "Then you were afraid of me," Shannon accused. She, too, was finding it hard to talk. Gascon made a helpless gesture. "Well, it didn't work," he groaned. "I'm sorry. You're right if you think I've been an idiot. Just pretend it never happened." "Why, Ben--" she began once more, and broke off. "We've just finished our last program for the year," said Ben Gascon. "Next year I won't be around. I think I'll stop throwing my voice for a while and live like a human being. Once I studied to be a doctor. Perhaps once more I can--" He walked out. The rush of words seemed to have left him spiritually limp and wretched. Shannon Cole watched him go. Then she bent above the discarded figure of little Tom-Tom, who lay on his back and goggled woodenly up at her. She put out a hand toward him, and her full raspberry-tinted lips trembled. Then she, too, left. And old Bratton stole from his hiding, to where lay the dummy. Lifting it, he realized that here was what he wanted. Again he spoke aloud--he never held with the belief that talking to oneself is the second or third stage of insanity: