How in the name of blazes had the telephone loony been able to stay on that wire so indefinitely? Why hadn't the operator broken in to end the connection each time Mort or Mike hung up? It seemed logical that she would have done so. The loony couldn't have just held onto the telephone and been right on tap the moment Mort or Mike picked up the hook. The loony could have called them, of course, but it would have been impossible for him to be on hand every time they picked up the telephone when it hadn't been ringing! I left my typewriter, not even bothering to remove the page in it, and hurried out of the office. Downstairs I found the "cigar store" completely deserted except for Mike and Mort. The day's races were over, and dice customers who were willing enough to roll cubes in office time, had headed homeward. "Brother," Mort greeted me, "you were right and how!" "About the loony--" I began. "That's right," Mort said. "He was as loony a loony as I've ever heard of. We finally got rid of him." "Got rid of him?" I blurted the question. "Yeah," Mort nodded. "And I hope for good. He just faded off, about half an hour after his voice began to get dimmer and dimmer, and that was that." "But--" I began. "And wait'll you hear who that bug thought he was." "Gabby who?" I asked. "Gabby, nuts. I messed it up the first time. He thought he was Gabriel, the _Angel_ Gabriel, no less!" Mort exclaimed, tapping the side of his head. "The Angel Gabriel?" I echoed. Mort nodded. "And guess who he was calling for?" "Don't tell me," I said. "That's right," Mort declared. "He said he was God's secretary, Gabriel, calling from Heaven for his boss. He said his boss wanted to talk to Hitler and Mussolini!" * * * * * I blinked. "And what was God going to tell those lice?" "To take it on the lam, or else!" Mike broke in. "No fooling?" "So help me!" Mort swore. "What a loony. He went on to say--this fake Angel Gabriel--that his boss just wanted to tell those two jerks, Adolf and Benito, that enough was enough and they were dead ducks for sure." "What made this Gabriel from the nut house get so confidential all of a sudden?" I demanded. "He wouldn't tell his business at all at first." "This'll kill you," Mort said. "The connection, like I say, kept getting fainter and fainter, and our goofy Gabriel said it was fading off and that we'd have to hand the message on to Hitler and Mussolini for his boss, if we couldn't bring the two jerks to the phone to hear it in person." "Did he bother to explain," I asked, "why he didn't call Adolf and Benito directly, if his boss wanted to tell them off?" "So help me," Mort declared, "he did. He said that with the war all over our globe like it is, there was a lot of space interference everywhere preventin' communication. He said he couldn't be choosy, and had to use any wire he could get through to. It happened to be ours. Can you beat it?"