The morning was a bad one as all bad ones usually are. But no matter how bad they get there's always the consoling thought that in a few hours things will ease up. I hugged this thought through a needle shower, through three cups of coffee in the kitchen. What I was neglecting in this reasoning was the splintered wood in the living room. I saw it on my way out. It hit me starkly, like the blasted section of a eucalyptus trunk writhing up from the ground. I stopped dead in the doorway and stared at it. Then I got out my knife and got at it. I probed but it was going to take more than a pocket knife. The ball--and it was just that--was buried a half inch in the soft pine of the casing. I closed the knife and went to the phone and got Information to ring the museum. "You people aren't missing a Brown Bess musket," I said. It was a question, of course, but not now--not the way I had said it. "Nobody stole anything out of the museum last night, did they?" Sweat was oozing over my upper lip. I could feel it. I could feel sweat wetting the phone in my hand. The woman on the other end told me to wait. I said, "Yeah"--not realizing. I waited, not realizing, until a man's voice came on. "You were saying something about a Brown Bess musket, mister?" A cold sharp voice--a gutter voice but with the masking tag of _official_ behind it. Like the voice of someone behind a desk writing something on a blotter--a real police voice. I put the phone down. I pulled all the shades in the living room, went out the door, locked it behind me and drove as fast as you can make a Buick go, out to the field. But _fast_! The XXE-1 was ready. She'd been ready for weeks. There wasn't a mechanical or electronic flaw in her. We hoped, I hoped, the man who designed her hoped. The Doll's father--he hoped most of all. Even lying quiescent in her hangar, she looked as sleek as a Napoleon hat done in poured monel. When your eyes went over her you knew instinctively they'd thrown the mach numbers out the window when she was done. I went through a door that had the simple word _Plotting_ on it. The Doll's father was there already behind his desk, studying something as I came in. He looked up, smiled, said, "Hi, guy." I flipped a finger at him. I wondered if the Doll had told him about last night. "Wife and I were going to suggest a snack when we got home last night but you had already gone, and Marge was in bed." I didn't look at him. "Left early, Pop. Growing boy." "Yeah. You look lousy, guy." I put my teeth together. I still didn't look at him. "These nights," I said vaguely. "Sure." I could feel something in his voice. I took a breath and put my eyes on his. He said, "I'm a hell of an old duck." "Not so old, Pop." "Sure I am. But not too old to remember back to the days when I wasn't too old." There was a grave look in his eyes.