I did. Then I stuck the helmet on his head and warmed the tubes. "Send," he said. I flipped the switch up and he lay there concentrating. "Receive," he said, his face taking on a _listening_ expression. "Tighten the chin strap, please," he asked. I did it. "Send." More concentration. "Receive." A fatuous grin lifted across his face. "It's Polly," he whispered. That made me uneasy. I thought it was just another delusion. I'd tried the Hustic once and it hadn't worked at all. "See," I said. "There aren't any Martians in there. They aren't making war on Earth." "Stop interrupting," he snapped. How much of what happened next was his own idea and how much he got from Polly I still don't know. For minutes at a time he'd _think_ into the machine. Then I'd switch over and he'd lie there and grin. Finally he lay there _listening_ so long and so quietly I thought he'd gone to sleep. I began to relax. Then Mike screamed and I came out of my chair like a shot. "Take it off! Take it off!" he shouted. "The Martians are after me!" He shook his head but the helmet stayed on, held by the chin strap. I cut the main switch and the tubes went dark. "It's all right, Mike!" I yelled across his screaming. "It's off now!" "No! No! No!" he gibbered. "They're coming through the helmet! Take it away! Take it away!" I knew I had to get that helmet off, much as I didn't like getting near him. I reached for the buckle, but he kept whipping his head about so I had trouble catching it and had to bend over him. Suddenly a long arm snaked around my neck and jerked me off balance. Then a ham-sized fist clipped my chin before I could even get my guard up. * * * * * When I came to I was in the cushions with the air turned on full. The release valve wasn't in my hand where it should have been. "Mike!" I yelled. He put his tongue between his lips and made a rude noise. He was patching the rubberized fabric of the other set of cushions, the ones in which he had been confined, and on his face was that wild look I had seen before when a good brawl was in prospect. "Mike!" I pleaded. "You can't do this to me!" "No? If Polly hadn't reminded me of this I'd be in there yet." He held up the shamrock good luck pin Polly had given him, a little thing he kept pinned to his coveralls at all times. He had managed to unfasten it and puncture the pneumatic cushions. But I had no good luck pin. I lay there helpless with all the stories I'd ever heard about the supernormal cleverness of lunatics running through my brain. I knew it would be three days, maybe four, before Bill returned. No chance of help from him. Mike opened the Hustic case, whistling off key as he moved around, and replaced the original bar and tube shield and condenser with his homemade parts. Then he got to work on the bar with my delicate and expensive set of instrument files ruining them completely on the soft copper alloy.