Mr. Harbinger fairly popped out of the chair, unstrung again at the reference, clearly made in deprecation, to his own century. However, he covered over admirably the mental abyss which yawned at his feet by clattering about among the few pieces of chipped china in his cupboard as though his sanity depended on the amount of distracting noise he could wring from the simple act of setting out a tea service for two. And indeed, for the moment, it did. He accepted gratefully, to put it mildly, the few moments respite accorded him by the small, secure hum-drum of preparing the hot water, of fussing over just the minutely exact amount of tea leaves to be spooned into each cup. Once again, as he invariably did each time he prepared the beverage, he silently congratulated himself on his one small talent ... but the dilute pleasure to be derived from such a trivia evaporated the instant he considered what would again confront him when he turned from the tiny Pullman kitchenette. He grew faint at the thought of being forced once more to brave the wandering improbable _eyes_, and the completely unthinkable _mouth_. A worse thought crossed his reeling mind as he started for the other side of the room, trying to walk the tea over with his eyes closed, but giving that up as impossible when he remembered the perilously threadbare condition of his rug. "Will I have to"--pause--"help you drink it?" The cups clattered betrayingly in each hand, no matter how mightily he strove to control his nerves. "Heavens no," laughed the _mouth_. One _eye_ crinkled in apparent amusement, the other continued to contemplate what Mr. Harbinger referred to as "the W.C." A _hand_ shot out of the wall and tapped Mr. Harbinger on the shoulder from the side of his weakest eye. At this completely unexpected assault, poor Mr. Harbinger gave a despairing little gasp, and would have dropped both cups smash on the floor had not a second _hand_ materialized instantly, and snatched them both, more or less expertly, in mid-air, spilling hardly a drop or two. "My!" Mr. Harbinger mumbled weakly, sinking like a wilting leaf into his patently uneasy easy chair. "I'm afraid the complications of this thing, be it lunacy or be it occult or whatever, are getting completely beyond me." He sat there trembling and impotent, unable to do much of anything beyond refusing to observe the two bizarrely supported cups of steaming tea. At last the _mouth_ said in some reproach, "If you will be good enough to take one of these off my hands.... Oh, I say ... off my hands!... I'd very much like to have a bit of the other." The left _hand_ seemed to extend itself toward Mr. Harbinger a bit, and though he could not help but cower down in his chair, unhinged as he was by all this, he at last realized that it would be only common courtesy to do what the _mouth_ had asked.