All nine of them washed up together and left together. It was the damnedest thing I ever saw offstage. Nine identical High-Pocketses--all so tall they had to weave around the neon lights instead of ducking under them. It was enough to give a man nightmares, to watch that line of High-Pockets Joneses advancing across an open composing-room. This kind of thing went on the next day, and the next. Every day there were nine High-Pockets Joneses in the composing-room. Everybody was falling over everybody else, when they weren't standing around laughing up their sleeves. There was nothing I could do. I had been forced to turn over all of my house to eight of the High-Pocketses, because they had to have a place to stay, and after all, I was responsible for them. Our production went up a little, but the Legal Printing Company job was hardly touched. There was too much of that sort of festive spirit in the air; everybody was watching the High-Pocketses and waiting to see what would happen next--and hoping for something extravagant. In other words, they refused to take it seriously; to them, it was a circus. I didn't have the nerve to ask anybody else to split. After all, High-Pockets was in nine places at once; that should have been enough. It was apparent by that time that the extender would never be anything in a printing office but a psychological monstrosity. I had to admit I was stymied, and I got so I didn't give a whoop. I was sunk anyway. That is the way it went that week. On Saturday night Dr. Hudson and I got beautifully soused. * * * * * On Monday morning I didn't care. The Legal Printing Company called up and said they could give us a few more days; if they could have it by Friday, they could still make the filing date. I said we'd do everything possible, and then I hung up and laughed bitterly and aloud. We couldn't get it out if we had another month. The only thing was, as soon as our plant closed up, they could ask the court for an extension because of unforeseen circumstances, and probably get it. So I laughed aloud. I saw Dr. Hudson cleaning out his desk, and I nodded. "Sorry, Doc, we got all fouled up. Maybe some other time--" He nodded. "Progress always encounters opposition," he said. "It just happens that we are the sacrifices in this deal." "Yeah." I went out and had a drink. I was pretty dazed that week. It didn't make any difference. I had already tried everything possible, and they had me hog-tied. And those nine High-Pocketses had made me a laughing-stock. On Friday morning, I looked at the calendar and it suddenly occurred to me that this was the thirty-first and the receivers would be around this afternoon to decide whether or not to close the place. There wasn't any doubt as to what they would do. I began to clean out my own desk. I felt terrible. Then one of the High-Pocketses came in with a piece of copy in his hand. He looked at me queerly and then said softly, "You leaving?"