The last word came out "mzzglmmp," punctuated, as it was, by something suspiciously akin to a sigh ... or a sob. There is an estimated total of two hundred and sixty thousand volunteer Air Raid Wardens now training for civilian defense duty in the United States. Of this number, about two hundred and fifty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine had greater aptitude for their jobs than did Peter Pettigrew. Two strikes had been called on this unhappy child of misfortune, and the Celestial Umpire's arm was already rising on the third, when Peter wailed entrance into this mad world. To begin with, as a specimen of manhood Peter Pettigrew was a washout. Padded shoulders helped conceal his spindling frame and built-up heels added a futile inch to his diminutive stature, but no aids, mechanical or sartorial, could ever remove the anemic pallor from his complexion, lend distinction to an unruly fuzz of taffy-colored hair, or cleanse his eyes of the pathetic wistfulness which mirrored his personality. Peter's physical counterpart was the photo labelled _Before_ in the "BE STRONG LIKE ME!" ads. Moreover, Peter was shy. Terribly, horribly, inconceivably shy of everything and anything that walked, swam, or flew on, under, or above the surface of the earth. He gulped when he talked, and never raised his voice to a degree louder than a timid bleat. Strangers frightened him ... acquaintances embarrassed him ... and he had no friends. He turned every hue of the rainbow when so much as noticed by members of the fair sex, and ate always in cafeterias in order to avoid the dread task of ordering from a waitress. His position in life was just what you might expect; he was the smallest imaginable cog in an organization so huge that to all save his immediate clerical companions he was but another name on the payroll. He earned enough to live and eat and visit a theatre once a week and support a second cousin in Oregon whom he had never seen in his life, but whose demanding letters threw him into a perfect frenzy of obligation. He dressed soberly, let subway guards shove him around without protest, and permitted himself nothing more highly intoxicant than an occasional Dr. Zipper. Thus Peter Pettigrew. Or thus, to be more accurate, the Peter Pettigrew who slipped his brief and unobtrusive way before the public eye. * * * * *