The little man stood on a bright mahogany sideboard, gleaming with all the primitive appurtenances of a Class C-type breakfast. A tray of buttered toast, crisply brown, rose like the Great Pyramid of Cheops at his back, and he was leaning for support against the coffee percolator that mirrored his wan and tormented face in wavy and distorted lines. It was easy to see that death was already beckoning to Rujit with a solemn and pontificial bow. "_Pop!_" Melvin gasped, leaping to his feet. John Elwood did not answer his son. However much he may have wanted to communicate there are few satisfactory avenues of communication that remain open to a man lying flat on his stomach on the floor in a dead faint.