He stepped across to the door and dropped the brass knocker, a little timorous at the sound of his own thudding steps. The door was snatched open with unexpected suddenness by a caricature of Ben in metal--as complete a machine as himself, but without most of the clothes. "Come in! Come in!" his friend bellowed in a voice with an oddly phonographic quality to it. "You look great. Iron Man MacGinnity! What did you put on clothes for? As useful as pants on a rock-drill. I have breakfast." "What is it? Am I crazy, are you, or are we both?" "Of course not. Greatest thing that ever happened. The big comet. They said she was radioactive, but most of 'em wouldn't believe it. Now look what it did." (Murray Lee remembered vaguely some newspaper palaver about a giant comet that was going to strike the earth--argument and counter-argument as to whether it would have a serious effect.) "Everybody's turned to metal; nize machinery, ate oop all de axle-grease. You need oil. Stick around." He disappeared into the bowels of the apartment, the sound of his footsteps ringing enormous in the vast silence. In an instant he was back with a radio battery in one hand and an oil-can in the other. "Sorry, no grease on tap," he remarked briskly. "Typewriter oil." He went to work busily, squirting drops of oil into Lee's new metallic joints. "Connect this thing up yourself. It fills you with what it takes." He indicated the battery with an extended toe. "One arm and the opposite leg. There seems to be a resistance chamber in us somewhere that collects the juice." Without in the least understanding what it was all about, Murray Lee made shift to follow his instruction. It was the most singular meal he had ever partaken of, but he found it curiously invigorating. "How about another? No? Have you seen anybody else? It finished most of them." "Will you sit down and tell me consecutively what it's all about before I bash you?" asked Murray, petulantly. "Being turned into a machine is not the easiest thing in the world on one's temper; it upsets the disposition." "Some sort of a special extra radioactive gas storm connected with the comet, I think, though I can't be sure. It's made machines of all of us, now and forever more. We'll live on electric current after this and won't have to bother about little things like doctors if we can find a good mechanic. But it killed a lot of people. Come along, I'll show you." * * * * * His hand rang on Murray's arm as he grasped it to lead the way. The hall was portentously dark, and Ben pulled him straight across it to the door marked "Fire Exit." "Elevator?" queried Murray. "No go. No power." "Oh, Lord, forty-eight stories to walk."