All around the three men the life of the saloon went on blithely. The other heart disease patients were drinking; some solemnly, some gaily, the aged waitresses were busy with their Hebe-like duties, the bartenders were mixing drinks, but to Jimmy, the whole of life ... and perhaps death were contingent upon the next three seconds. "One." Bowdler's voice whispered. Jimmy could see Grundy bunching his heavy muscles for some kind of action. "Two." Watching the R.A. out of the corner of his eyes, Jimmy wondered if it was just his imagination or if he had really seen the R.A.'s trigger finger tighten on the stungun's trigger. "Three!" CHAPTER 4 Later, looking back on the scene that followed, Jimmy was never quite sure just what had happened in just what order. For the first thing that erupted was the table. Grundy had suddenly tilted back in his chair throwing his heavy body over backwards. His legs, under the table, served to catapult the heavy object straight up towards the little spy window where the R.A. waited. Bowdler had thrown his own empty glass straight at the eternally lit little bulb that had supplied the only illumination. Darkness, then the crash of the table, then Comstock had obeyed orders and thrown himself flat on the floor. Next to him he had heard Bowdler land heavily. The second crash as the table fell to the floor was the signal for Bowdler to grab Comstock by the arm and whisper, "Crawl after me." Darkness and silence. None of the other heart patients in the saloon had uttered a sound. That was not surprising of course, as anything unusual that ever happened was always the result of the action of the R.A.'s and it ill behooved anyone to interfere with them.... The only sign of light was the little flicker that came from the R.A.'s halo. The sight of it was enough to make Comstock's blood run cold. Hopelessly he wished for a heart attack that would make him _hors de combat_, but for once that organ seemed impregnable. Then, crawling on his hands and knees, crawling after the unseen bulk of Bowdler, with fear in him like a live thing, Comstock died a thousand deaths. In the darkness a bulky body had bumped into him, and for a moment his heart had seemed to stop completely but then he realized it was only Grundy. The man had whispered, "Not far now." Most frightening of all had been the moment when his head had touched the solid wall of the back room of the saloon. That had not been frightening in itself, but what had happened next was the worst of all, for suddenly the solid wall was no longer solid. Frozen immobile, he had waited till Grundy had said, "Go on ... hurry up." Behind him Bowdler had pushed him, hard. There was no choice. He went through the no longer solid wall. Then there was another terrible period of darkness and silence and crawling along on all fours.