"Rubber shoes, I fancy," said Ben, as his feet skidded on the pavement. "Let's take a taxi there and go find a shoe store." Together they managed to slide the cast-iron taxi driver from his seat (Murray was surprised at how easily he was able to lift a weight he could not have budged in his flesh and blood days), deposited him on the curb and climbed in. The key was fortunately in the switch. As they swung around the corner into Madison Avenue, Lee gave an exclamation. A scene of ruin and desolation met their eyes. Two or three street cars had telescoped and an auto or so had piled into the wreckage. All about were the iron forms of the passengers in these conveyances, frozen in the various attitudes they had assumed at the moment of the change, and from one or two of them thin streamers of metal showed where blood had flowed forth before it had been irretrievably crystallized to metal. Murray Lee suddenly realized that an enormous amount of machinery had gone to smash everywhere when the guiding hands had been removed and the guiding brains frozen to useless metal. He gave a little shudder. * * * * * They swung round before a shoe store with grating brakes. The door was locked, but Ben, lifting his foot, calmly kicked a hole in the show window. Murray extended a restraining hand, but his friend shook it off. "No use asking permission. If the proprietor of this place is still alive anywhere, it will be easy enough to settle up for the damage; if he isn't, we have as good a right to it as anybody." The new toes, which appeared to be longer than those he remembered, made fitting a difficulty, and Murray split two or three shoes before he got a pair on. "What next?" he asked. "I feel like a drink." "No use," said Ben. "You're on the wagon for good. Alcohol would play merry hell with your metalwork. The best thing is to find out how many people we are. For all we know, we're the only ones in the world. This thing seems to have knocked out everybody along the street level. Let's try some of the taller apartment buildings and see if we can find more penthouse dwellers." "Or maybe the others came to before us and went away," offered Murray. "True," Ben replied. "Anyhow, look-see." He led the way to the taxi. "Wait," said Murray. "What's that?" Above the sound of the starting engine came the echo of heavy footsteps, muffled by shoes. "Hey! Coo-ee! This way!" shouted Ben. The footsteps tentatively approached the corner. Murray ran forward, then stopped in amazement. The newcomer was a girl--or would have been a girl had she not been all metal and machinery like themselves. To his eyes, still working on flesh-and-blood standards, she was anything but good-looking. She was fully and formally dressed, save that she wore no hat--the high pile of tangled wire that crowned her head made this obviously impossible. "Oh, what _has_ happened?" she cried at them. "What can I do? I took a drink of water and it hurt."