"No. No, thank you. Thank you." I turned and walked out of the shop. On the sidewalk, I stopped to look up at the numbers on the door. They seemed to be the same numbers. And the three gold gilt balls hanging over the doorway seemed the same, too. I shrugged. Perhaps I'd been wrong. There were a lot of pawn shops on Third Avenue, and maybe I'd just stumbled into the wrong one, being a little worked up and all. I started walking, stopping at the next pawn shop, ready to go in. I noticed that the grillwork fence was already up. Gone for the day. I kept walking, stopped at two more closed, fenced shops and then decided I'd let it go for tonight. I'd start again early in the morning, looking for the fat old man with the bald head and the mustache. I'd find him then, and straighten this all out. I went back to my room. The typewriter was sitting where I'd left it. I snatched the sheet of paper from the roller, tossed it onto the floor. I put a new sheet into the machine, and sat down to type what I wanted to type, knowing damned well I'd get Poe instead. I typed without looking at the sheet of paper, afraid almost at what I knew would be there. _The Murders In The Rue Morgue_, maybe. Or _Ulalume_, if the machine had forgotten I didn't write poetry. I opened my eyes and stopped typing. I looked at what I'd written. _The day was crisp and clear, with the promise of a mild afternoon in the air. It was the beginning of April, and Spring rustled her greenness and yawned leisurely. I walked along happily._ "Well, I'll be damned," I said. I leaned back, fully expecting some answer from the machine. There was none. I poked my forefinger at the shift key, tapped the space bar tentatively, rolled the roller, swung the carriage, sniffed at the ribbon. "Have you gone?" I asked the typewriter. There was no answer. I sighed happily and started to work, typing twelve pages of lousy prose which I tossed into the wastebasket. But I was happier than I'd been since I bought the infernal machine. * * * * * After a glass of orange juice, a cup of coffee, and a slice of burnt toast the next morning, I tackled the machine again. This time, I was hot. There was nothing to stop me. The words ran from my brain to my fingers, onto the keys, spilling onto the clean sheets of paper. I typed furiously, feeling right about my work, knowing I was doing well. It was as if the machine and I were one, as if my fingers had become an extension of the keys. I didn't stop to think once. As soon as I'd taken one sheet of paper from the machine, I rolled in another and kept going. The delay of changing paper was almost too much to bear. The words just tumbled out of me, and they were good words, and it was a good story.