When we reached our terminus, they threw the noose from my feet and prodded me to precede them from the car. Others were there waiting,--other normals, I mean. I saw nobody else in my fix. We were between two large, dark buildings which seemed to compose a factory of some sort. I saw corrugated, sheet-steel shutters covering the windows, not only next to the ground but upon the upper floors. The factory unit to the right communicated with the one to the left by a bridge-of-sighs effect about twenty feet from the ground. The whole place had a shut and deserted look which was intensified by the distance of the nearest night lamps. There was a dark, overcast sky. I remember glancing up to get a glimpse of a star or so, if I could; but nothing like one was showing. So I took a long deep breath of the outside air, as the next best thing to do, before following some of the normals, and preceding others, into an aperture which developed a door somewhat farther along. We were in a large, wide space of a character familiar to me; it was bare of furniture, except for many long, low tables, several chairs and stools and, here and there, a desk. Chutes slanted down upon the tables. These were for the delivery of goods in the days when the factory was working; here the shipments had been made up and dispatched. I saw all this in the yellow glow from a couple of old electric bulbs in fixtures on the sides of the great supporting columns which stood in rows through the room. Although these lights proved that current was coming into the building, the state of this shipping floor was conclusive that the factory was shut down. It was an easy trick, I knew, for one of the normals to “cut in” the current which had been turned off by the company. Several empty boxes, ready for goods which never slid down the chutes, were piled up on one side and I passed near enough to read the stencilling on their ends. “Stamby-Temke Chemical Company,” they said. I had a dim notion of the name. It seemed to me that this was one of the plants which had boomed during the war and afterwards had continued, with the idea that German dyes and chemicals would not again compete in the American market. They had quoted us coloring matter and synthetic fruit flavors; but we weren’t interested. The normals walked me upon the broad platform of a freight elevator. I saw by the city license framed on its side that this was operated by electric power. A normal moved a lever and we slowly rose past one dark floor, two, three, four. Upon the fifth, we stepped out. Several lights were burning here and better ones than below,--bright Mazdas, these were. We were in another wide room but this had rows of desks and work benches; big bottles and carboys gleamed from shelves. The glass in the windows reflected the lights like mirrors, for they were black behind, with steel shutters tight screening them. None of this light escaped.