"With the world coming down around our ears," he snarled, "I suppose you expect me to sit here complacently simpering and snickering and snapping my gum like an addled adolescent? Don't you care that we may all go to blazes in the next few minutes?" "No!" Julie screamed, fitting a direct answer to a direct question. "No, I don't care. I'm tired of caring. I'm tired through with caring. And I'm tired of you sitting there with those great elephantine ears of yours hinged to that radio. You've been at it day in, day out, day in, day out, day in...!" "Stop repeating yourself like some idiot tropical bird," Marc snapped. "Why don't you ever go down to the office any more?" Julie asked with womanly logic. "Why don't you get out of here and leave me alone?" * * * * * In heavy martyrdom Marc lifted his eyes to the ceiling. What was the use? Why go through it all again? He'd explained to her a million times that he no longer had any _reason_ to go to the office. The advertising business had been one of the first to suffer. Who cared what the advertising industry had to say at a time like this? Who wanted to be beautiful or healthy or envied when there wasn't any future in it? "Turn the radio on," he said steadily. Julie's eyes actually sparked flame. "_What?_ Do you really have the grassy green gall to ask me to turn that thing on again? I don't believe my ears!" "I'm not asking," Marc said slowly, "I'm _instructing_ you to." "Hah!" Julie snorted to some invisible spectator. "Listen to him!" She eyed him nastily. "Ask me to shinny up the doorsill and do a swan dive into my cocktail. I'll do that sooner." Marc met her gaze for a moment and momentarily declined the challenge. "I suppose you just want to sit here and never know what hit you?" "Exactly," Julie said. "For heaven's sake what does it matter what hits us after we're dead? At least I don't want to sit here chewing my nails while some morbid-minded deficient drives me into a state of complete nervous collapse." Marc disengaged himself from his chair. She had a point there, though he'd rot before he admitted it. With considerable unconcern he moseyed across the room and glanced out the window. Then he stopped and leaned closer to the pane. Across the street the world was already ablaze. The night sky glowed red with flame. "My God!" he cried. "The Fredericks are on fire!" Julie moved to his side and stared out the window. "Who are those people?" she asked. "The ones sitting on the lawn there?" Marc directed his gaze to the right. He should have seen them sooner, except that one's sense of logic, when one is witnessing a fire, does not readily encompass a group of people lounging on blankets in the glowing radiance--especially when those people are concerned more with food, drink and cards than with the fire--and more especially when the owners of the flaming dwelling are prominent among those present.... "Aren't those the Fredericks?" Julie asked.