The Colonel was silent for a minute, seeming to picture his wife's suggestion in his mind. Finally he nodded. He turned to Marc. "Is it all right with you, damnyankee?" he asked. "Anything's all right with me," Marc said hopelessly. "Go ahead. I don't even give a damn anymore." The scene that followed established a new and fascinating high in sheer insanity. Girding his rusty loins against the first physical effort they had been forced to in years, the Colonel busily began to cavort about the room like a bloated rhino. Clumsily loping through an obstacle course of plumbing appliances, the old boy found it rough going at best. As for the Colonel's lady, she languished calmly in her cooling tub, soaped her arms, and watched her laboring husband with nodding approval. Marc, even beyond the point of mere resignation, closed his eyes and waited. "Well," the Colonel wheezed, rushing once more to the end of the room and starting back again, "this is it!" As he ran, he trained the pistols loosely in Marc's direction. "Here I come! Ready ... aim...!" It was at this climactic point in the bathroom drama that the door burst open and Toffee, closely followed by the two Blemishes, rushed into view. "Stop!" Toffee screamed. In mid-gallop, the Colonel turned sharply to observe the intruders, tripped over a clothes hamper, and descended to the floor in a deafening roar of gunfire. As a cloud of smoke billowed up around the gallant man from the South, Mrs. Hunter Reynolds turned, looked briefly at Toffee and the Blemish brothers and sank into the depths of her bath with only a small gurgle to mark her departure. * * * * * Toffee ran to the window, motioning the brothers to follow. She emerged through the rising screen of smoke just in time to see Marc's fingers, white with tension, slip from the sill and disappear out of view. "He's gone!" she screamed. "He's gone!" The Blemishes crowded beside her at the window and leaned forward. They were just in time to catch the last glimpse of Marc floating serenely out of sight beyond the rim of the building as they watched. "Come on!" Toffee yelled. "Up to the roof!" "What for?" Gerald Blemish said bitterly. "He's gone, now." "Well, at least we can wave goodbye," Toffee said. She started rapidly toward the door. "My!" Cecil Blemish said, picking his way carefully over the prone figure of the Colonel. "Look at all the water in here. The old gaffer got the water pipes, two out of two." It was barely seconds later when the skylight door at the top of the hotel flew open and Toffee and the matching Blemishes ran out onto the roof. They scanned the distant sky as they moved. "He's gone!" Toffee cried despairingly. "He's clear out of sight!" The brothers stopped and looked at each other without hope. "Well," Cecil muttered. "There goes everything."