I shook my head. "Five hundred?" I kept on shaking. "All right, all right," he grumbled. "Look, you take the other things for six thousand--including what you got in your pockets that you don't think I know about, see? And I'll throw this in. How about it?" That was fine as far as I was concerned, but just on principle I pushed him a little further. "Forget it," I said. "I'll give you fifty bills for the lot, take it or leave it. Otherwise I'll walk right down the street to Gimbel's and--" He guffawed. "Whats the matter?" I demanded. "Pal," he said, "you kill me. Stranger in town, hey? You can't go anyplace but here." "Why not?" "Account of there _ain't_ anyplace else. See, the chief here don't like competition. So we don't have to worry about anybody taking their trade elsewhere, like--we burned all the other places down." That explained a couple of things. I counted out the money, loaded the stuff back in the wheelbarrow and headed for the Statler; but all the time I was counting and loading, I was talking to Big Brainless; and by the time I was actually on the way, I knew a little more about this "chief." And that was kind of important, because he was the man we were going to have to know very well. II I locked the door of the hotel room. Arthur was peeping out of the suitcase at me. I said: "I'm back. I got your typewriter." He waved his eye at me. I took out the little kit of electricians' tools I carried, tipped the typewriter on its back and began sorting out leads. I cut them free from the keyboard, soldered on a ground wire, and began taping the leads to the strands of a yard of forty-ply multiplex cable. It was a slow and dull job. I didn't have to worry about which solenoid lead went to which strand--Arthur could sort them out. But all the same it took an hour, pretty near, and I was getting hungry by the time I got the last connection taped. I shifted the typewriter so that both Arthur and I could see it, rolled in a sheet of paper and hooked the cable to Arthur's receptors. Nothing happened. "Oh," I said. "Excuse me, Arthur. I forgot to plug it in." I found a wall socket. The typewriter began to hum and then it started to rattle and type: DURA AUK UKOO RQK MWS AQB It stopped. "Come on, Arthur," I ordered impatiently. "Sort them out, will you?" Laboriously it typed: !!! Then, for a time, there was a clacking and thumping as he typed random letters, peeping out of the suitcase to see what he had typed, until the sheet I had put in was used up. I replaced it and waited, as patiently as I could, smoking one of the last of my cigarettes. After fifteen minutes or so, he had the hang of it pretty well. He typed: YOU DAMQXXX DAMN FOOL WHUXXX WHY DID YOU LEAQNXXX LEAVE ME ALONE Q Q "Aw, Arthur," I said. "Use your head, will you? I couldn't carry that old typewriter of yours all the way down through the Bronx. It was getting pretty beat-up. Anyway, I've only got two hands--"