The shot pinged against the steel wall, flaking off some of the plastic covering. Don dropped to the floor, and came up with his wastepaper basket, which he hurled at Towle. Towle ducked, fended it aside with his left hand, and tried to level the gun again. Walt Franks reached into an open file drawer and grabbed a large handful of papers, which he threw at Towle. They fluttered and filled the air for a moment, which distracted Towle long enough for Channing to leap over the desk. Don and Walt closed on Towle in a high-low tackle, Don jumping at Towle's head and shoulders from the desk top, while Franks hit Towle sidewise at the thigh-level in a crashing tackle. They rolled over and over and Towle lost his revolver. The papers were still fluttering to the floor when they came to rest with Towle neatly squelched beneath Channing and Franks. Towle tried to heave them off. Don almost knocked Towle's jaw loose with a stinging backhand slap. "Don't try," snarled Don, "you're had--right now!" "You stinking--" "Shaddup," growled Channing, "and start explaining what this is for." "I'm ruined!" "Try it again and we'll ruin you some more," promised Don. "I have an aversion to being shot at." "So have I," said Walt. "He wasn't shooting at you," said Don. "No, but I'd have been next, wouldn't I, Lazarus?" "Laurus," snarled Towle. "Now look," said Don in a voice that gave no idea of softness, "you're licked from here on in. This weapon of yours is now ours, and we'll hang it in the museum with other mementoes of our having been shot at. Luckily, this makes the first time that it has been close. Say--you aren't an old crony of Hellion Murdoch?" "Never heard of him." "Good. Now, as I was saying, we've disarmed you--Walt, take a prowl of his person and see if he has any more lethal instruments concealed thereupon--and we're inclined to get up off the floor and resume our roles as gentlemen. Besides, I want to know what you had in mind besides assassination." They lifted the man from his supine position and planted him roughly in an overstuffed chair. Don and Walt sat on one edge of the desk, ready to move in with the first wrong move. Don snapped the communicator and spoke to the girl outside. "Mr. Towle had an accident with an exploding cigar, Lorraine. No one need enter." "Now," he said to Towle, "precisely what gives?" "I'm ruined." "Yup. You are. But why?" "You ruined me." "Me?" asked Channing. "Not that I know of." "I'm bankrupt." "_Bankrupt?_" laughed Channing. Towle bristled at the laugh. "It's no laughing matter, Channing. For most of my life I've been saving to retire. In the turn of a wrist, you have made all my savings useless." "Are you starving?" "No." "Are you homeless?" "No." "Are you being deprived of anything?" "Um--no." "Then what's all the shooting for?" "But my savings?" "Look, Towle, you worked hard for them, I do not doubt. But you've got just what you wanted anyway. You have a duplicator?"