"I'm going past now, Mitzie," Phil murmured and walked ahead into the knife. For about two feet it drew back at exactly the same speed with which he walked into it, then it was whipped suddenly to one side, and as he passed Mitzie he caught the choked off beginning of a sob. Neither of them made another sound. He looked back once and saw her profile in the light from the big room, and the slack line of her shoulder and the arm holding the knife. Often faces look unexpectedly weak in profile, but Phil felt he'd never seen one that also looked so tragically lost. Its image haunted him as the curving corridor grew darker and then lighter again and then made a very sharp turn and unexpectedly emerged into a long, richly furnished room. He blundered a step forward before he saw there were three people at the far end and that one of them was Moe Brimstine. They weren't looking his way and he could have ducked back out of sight easily enough, but he hurried it too much and brushed against a slim pillar topped by a small aquarium in which tiny pink, green and violet octopuses clung and swam. The pillar teetered dangerously. Stumbling as he grabbed to steady it, he fell out into the room with it and thudded into the foam flooring, as the water and the candy colored octopuses gushed all over. XI After a couple of seconds Phil decided regretfully that keeping himself scrunched against the yielding floor with both eyes tightly closed was not going to help. He opened them cautiously, blinked at the flooring, and tried to nerve himself to look up. Meanwhile: "Brimstine, what's keeping that FBL man?" "Now don't worry, Mr. Billig. He'll be here any minute." "I'm beginning to doubt it. What if they're lying about sending a man, and actually they're planning to raid us, counting on picking up the green cat when they do?" "The government wouldn't dare do that, Mr. Billig. They need the green cat, or they think they do." "Then why isn't that FBL man here?" "I tell you not to worry, Mr. Billig. Relax. Let Dora stroke your forehead." "Pfui!" Considerably puzzled, Phil lifted his chin off the flooring and cautiously swiveled his head. The Mr. Billig he'd heard mentioned with so much awe turned out to be a very gaunt dark man who looked at first glance thirty, at second seventy, and at third a mystery to which youth-prolonging hormones might provide a clue. He was dressed in severely cut black sports togs. Moe Brimstine bulked a lot bigger, but only physically--his blunt manner had altered to that of a servant with clownish privileges. Even his black glasses now looked a trifle comic.