"He and you!" I snorted. "Where do you get the community spirit? All you did was point the telescope where Hank told you! Oh--he's places, doing things. I'll tell him you want him." And less than an hour later I bumped into H. Logan MacDowell, himself, in person, and not the captive balloon he looked like, to meet the same query. "James, my dear lad," puffed the erstwhile Prexy of our former Alma Mammy. "I have been endeavoring to ascertain the whereabouts of our erudite rural companion. If you could enlighten me--" "If you mean," I interpreted, "where's Hank, I guess he's home." H. Logan pawed his plump jowls speculatively. "You might inform him that my daughter is most disturbed about his apparent disinclination to seek her company." "H-how's that again?" I asked. MacDowell frowned at me disapprovingly. "The custom," he hrrumphed, "is commonly known as--er--dating." "You mean she wants to fling woo," I said, "and old Hank ain't been parking on the divan lately? Now I _know_ he's off his button. A gal like Helen, and with the marriage date already set--all right, Prexy. I'll tell him." * * * * * So I guess those two chance meetings served as eye-openers, because when I went home that evening, I came to the realization that Hank Cleaver had turned our tiny flat into a super-scientific workshop. There were odds and ends of things all over the living room; when I entered I heard a humming in Hank's bedroom, a curious, whining wail that stopped just as I entered, gave way to the tapping of a hammer on metal. "_Hank!_" I yelled. No answer. The lamps dimmed for a moment then rose again as the humming sound drowned out my call. "_Hank!_" I cried again. Still no answer. So I walked over to his door, and banged. "Hey! Come out, come out, wherever you are!" And Hank came to the door, hair rumpled, a smear of grease running diagonally from his right temple to the tip of his nose, collar open, sleeves rolled high-- "Was you callin' me, Jim?" he asked. "Who, me?" I retorted elaborately. "Oh, no! I was just addressing an envelope--hey, what the hell makes around here? Anyhow? Everybody and his brother has been asking me where I hid the _corpus delicti_. What are you making--" Then I looked over his shoulder and saw it. It was the wildest, weirdest looking thing you ever set eyes on in your life. I can't describe it exactly. They say English is the most elastic of all languages, but even _it_ lacks the words to describe some things. Like this one. But I'll take a running start and see what happens. It was a machine. It was made of metal and glass and gadgets and doolollies and sugar and spice and everything nice; that's what little _girls_ are made of! It was shaped something like the tonneau of a 1931 model Packard, and somewhat more like a big, old-fashioned bathtub with a hood. It was roughly oval, but only roughly so, because you couldn't exactly decide what shape it was. It _wriggled_!