"Well," Toffee said slowly, "I didn't want to be the first to mention it, but...." * * * * * Suddenly, they were both silent, their eyes intent on the floor and a cigarette stub that had begun to behave with shocking abnormality. Still alight, as it had been dropped, it suddenly crushed itself out flat against the floor and ceased to smoke. It was for all the world as though someone had stepped on it to put it out, and yet there wasn't a human foot within yards of the thing. "Oh, my gosh!" Toffee breathed. "Do you suppose that thing realizes what it can do to a nervous system with a trick like that?" "What do you suppose it is?" Marc asked. "It's a cigarette stub," Toffee said. "And it's gone mad. It's completely out of its head. Let's just pay it no mind, treat it with complete contempt. Maybe it'll crawl away and do its odious little stunt for someone who likes that sort of thing." "You may be right," Marc said without the slightest tone of belief. He turned away, but his gaze remained furtively on the flattened stub. Since there was no further disturbance, he pulled himself together and started toward one of the phone booths. Toffee watched after him with careful intensity. But if either of them thought they'd had the last of madness from inanimate objects, they were woefully mistaken. The phone booth was next to become possessed. It was as though the hulking enclosure had been waiting in prey for Marc. No sooner did Marc stick his head inside the booth than the doors, without any visible guidance, snapped shut, caught him by the neck, and held him fast. Toffee started back with a cry of pure surprise. "Help!" Marc wheezed from inside the booth. "Help!" It was a moment before Toffee was capable of action, but she did her best to make up for lost time. She started forward to the attack with a vengeance. But no sooner had she come within reaching distance of the booth and the door than she was mysteriously and invisibly thrust back. She renewed her efforts but was only repelled for a second time. She paused to consider the door, the booth and her own emotions, rapidly approaching a state of blind rage. It was just as she had braced herself and hunched angrily forward for the third attack that the woman came out of the booth next to the one in which Marc was trapped. She took one look at the determined redhead and drew her own conclusions. "Hold off, honey!" she screamed. "You can have the booth! I'm through!" But Toffee had already hurled herself forward in a headlong, firm-jawed lunge. The woman screamed shrilly and departed the booth and the vicinity with the speed of a deer in season. In the next split second Toffee collided with Marc's invisible captor. There was a dull thud, a small skirmishing, and then Toffee, apparently bearing her opponent to the floor with her, went down in tangled triumph. The door of the telephone booth flew open and Marc dropped to his knees, gasping for air.