He went to see the local moving picture, a piece advertised as being one of the best mystery thrillers since DeMille. He found that all of the interesting parts were cut out and that the only thing that remained was a rather disjointed portrayal of a portly detective finding meaningless clues and ultimately the criminal. There was a suggestion at the end, that the detective and the criminal had fought it out, but whether it was with pistols, field pieces, knives, cream puffs, or words was left up to the imagination. It was also to be assumed that he and the heroine, who went into a partial blackout every time she sat down, finally got acquainted enough to hold hands after the picture. Channing stormed out of the theater after seeing the above and finding that the only cartoon had been barred because it showed an innocuous cow without benefit of shorts. * * * * * He troubled Joe for a bottle of the best and took to his apartment in disappointment. By eight o'clock in the evening, Don Channing was asleep with all of his clothing on. The bed rolled and refused to stay on an even keel, but Channing found a necktie and tied himself securely in the bed and died off in a beautiful, boiled cloud. He awoke to the tune of a beautiful hangover. He gulped seven glasses of water and staggered to the shower. Fifteen minutes of iced needles, and some coffee brought him part way back to his own, cheerful self. He headed down the hall toward the elevator. He found a note in his office directing him to appear at a conference in Burbank's office. Groaning in anguish, Don went to the Director's office expecting the worst. It was bad. In fact, it was enough to drive everyone in the conference to drink. Burbank asked opinions on everything, and then tore the opinions apart with little regard to their validity. He expressed his own opinion many times, which was a disgusted sense of the personnel's inability to do anything of real value. "Certainly," he stormed, "I know you are operating. But have there been any new developments coming out of your laboratory, Mr. Channing?" Someone was about to tell Burbank that Channing had a doctor's degree, but Don shook his head. "We've been working on a lot of small items," said Channing. "I cannot say whether there has been any one big thing that we could point to. As we make developments, we put them into service. Added together, they make quite an honest effort." "What, for instance?" stormed Burbank. "The last one was the coupler machine improvement that permitted better than a thousand words per minute." "Up to that time the best wordage was something like eight hundred words," said Burbank. "I think that you have been resting too long on your laurels. Unless you can bring me something big enough to advertise, I shall have to take measures.