At the end of another two weeks, this method for disposing of the eggs had worn thin. They finally managed to give the last two packages to the landlady. * * * * * At the end of still another week, there were seven more packages. Otherwise, the refrigerator was a good buy. Coxe calculated that, at the present rate, had he left the packages in the compartment, it would have been filled by the end of the month. He felt that once that point was reached, the eggs would stop coming. Should this prove to be incorrect, he was prepared to arrange for some method of commercial distribution for the product. On schedule, the eggs stopped coming. He waited two days. No more came. It was over. He ate the last package. * * * * * The refrigerator worked perfectly, and he began to stock it with things freezers are conventionally stocked with. It was almost two weeks after the last package had appeared, early one Sunday morning, when the doorbell rang. At the door was a small, nondescript man with a vaguely--and really indefinably--unpleasant aspect. His head was bandaged. "Mr. Coxe?" he asked. "That's me." "May I come in?" "Come on." The man seated himself. "Something terrible has happened," he said. "A horrible mistake has been made." "I'm sorry to hear that. You look as if you were in an accident." "I was. I've been in the ... hospital ... for nearly two months. But to come to the point, Mr. Coxe. I've come about the refrigerator you recently purchased. It was a special refrigerator that was erroneously shipped out of the plant as a second. When I didn't come in, it got shipped out and sold." "Good refrigerator," Coxe said. "Perhaps you've noticed ... ah ... something unusual about it?" "It runs okay. For a while there were a bunch of packages of fish eggs in it." "Fish eggs!" the little man cried in horror. After he had recovered sufficiently, he asked, "You do, of course you do, I'm sure you still have all the ... little packages?" "Oh, no," said Coxe. "NO? Oh, my God. What did you do with them, Mr. Coxe?" "Ate them." "You ... ate ... them? Ate--? No. You didn't. Not all of them. You couldn't have done that, Mr. Coxe. Please tell me that you could not have done that." "I had to give a lot of them away, and everybody said they were delicious. And really.... Uh, Mr.--? Mr., uh...." The little man got unsteadily to his feet. His face was ashen. "This is horrible, horrible." He stumbled to the door. "You are a fiend. All our work ... all our plans ... and you, you...." He turned to Coxe. "I hate you. Oh, I hate you." "Now, see here." "... Mr. Coxe, you'll never realize the enormity of your crime. _You've eaten all of us!_" With that, he slammed the door and was gone. Coxe went back to the other room. "Who was it, honey?" "Ah, some nut. Seems he had first claim on the refrigerator." "I'll bet it was about the fish eggs." "Yeah, he wanted them."