"Eh?" he yawned, then sat up abruptly as a current of horror flashed up his spine. What chilled him more than the reproving tone and the baleful eye was the realization that he had been asleep. He glanced away from the fuming chairman and subjected the room to a wary search. It was on the return sweep that his most awful expectations burst abloom. Toffee, looking for all the world like an abandoned torch singer on the corner of a piano, was sitting on the outer edge of the podium, one hand poised rakishly on a well-curved hip. She surveyed the assemblage with unmistakable disappointment. Throughout the room several hot games of tick-tack-toe were summarily abandoned as grey, greying, bald and balding heads snapped back in uncharacteristic attitudes of attention. The members of Congress, acting sharply against precedent, sat up and took note of the business at hand. * * * * * Since no one else spoke, Toffee took the initiative. "So this is a body of men, is it?" she sneered. "I've seen better bodies on Model T's." The Chair eyed her with a definite lack of warmth. "My dear young woman," the Chair said, glaring coldly through his glasses. "Just what do you think you're doing?" "I'm here to be investigated," Toffee said, jauntily crossing her legs. "Get out the tape measure and heave to." Marc pressed his hands to his temples and sank lower in his seat. "What!" the Chair said. "You're the young woman known as Toffee?" "The same," Toffee said complacently. "The very same." "How did you get there on the stand all of a sudden?" "Ask me no questions," Toffee said, "and you'll reduce the lie expectancy by at least fifty percent." Marc's forlorn moan was lost as the Chair cleared his throat. He flicked a pencil in Marc's direction. "Take your place over there with your confederate, please." "Sure," Toffee said. Abandoning her perch, she leaped lightly to the floor and shoved off in Marc's direction, pausing on the way to pat Congressman Bloodsop on the head. The congressman winked at her, withdrew the pocket flask which had been affixed to his mouth and wiped his lips genteelly on the back of his hand. "Government," Toffee observed, settling herself happily at Marc's side, "is much the same the world over--full of medicinal purposes." "Why did you have to show up now?" Marc asked sourly. "They'd have called the whole thing off in another few minutes." "That's what I like," Toffee said, patting his hand, "a rousing welcome from the one you left behind." Marc withdrew his hand frigidly and resisted a yawn. "Now we're right back in the same old soup." Toffee scanned the Congress with a sweeping glance. "Don't tell me you're afraid of this collection of old nincompoops?" she scoffed.