He ran cold water into a basin and splashed it over his face, holding a palmful at a time against the damaged eye. When this did not seem sufficiently effective, he wadded a soft paper towel, soaked it in running water, and applied it until it lost its chill. "Am I doing right?" he wondered. "I can never remember whether it's hot or cold you're supposed to use." He thought about it while holding the slowly disintegrating towel to his eye. Someone had told him, as nearly as he could recall, that either way helped, depending upon when heat or cold was applied. "I guess it must be that you use cold before it has time to swell," he muttered. "Keep the blood from going into the tissues--that must be it. But if you're too late for that, then heat would keep it from stiffening. Now, the question is, did I start in time?" He examined the eye. It did not feel too sore, but it was still red and slightly swollen. The flow of tears had stopped, so he decided there was little more he could do. He dried his face and walked out into the corridor, blinking. _The com room is pretty dim_, he thought. He went to the laboratory door and opened it quietly. The room was dark and unoccupied. Westervelt swore to himself that if he stumbled over anyone this time, he would punch every nose he could reach without further ado. Unless, he amended the intention, he ran into Lydman. He was squeamish about turning on a light, which left him the problem of groping his way through the maze of tables, workbenches, and stacks of cartons. He set down for future conversation the possibility of claiming that the department was as normal as any other business; it too possessed the typical, messy back room out of range of the front office. He had negotiated about half the course when he felt a cool breeze. At first, he thought it must come from an air-conditioning diffuser, but it blew more horizontally. Someone must have opened a window, he decided, or perhaps broken one trying out a dangerous instrument. He succeeded in reaching the far wall, where he felt around for the door leading to the communications room. This was over near the outside wall, but he reached it without bumping into more than two or three scattered objects. Once through the door, he could see better because a little light was diffused past the wire-mesh enclosure around the power equipment. He walked along the short passage formed by this, turned a corner, and came in sight of Joe Rosenkrantz sitting before his screen. "Hello, Joe," he greeted the operator. The other jumped perceptibly, looking around at the door. "It's Willie," said Westervelt. "I came around the other way." He was pleased to find that Rosenkrantz had the room as dimly lighted as was customary among the TV men. Joe stared for a moment at him and Westervelt feared that the other's vision was too well adjusted to the light. "I didn't think anybody but Lydman used that way much," said Rosenkrantz.