Every eye on the stage looked up. Fifty feet overhead, a figure in a red and white blazer balanced precariously on the criss-cross bars of the iron grid. Cooper teetered and sat down on a bar, his feet dangling through the opening of the three foot square. Then he thrust himself off and came plummeting down, feet first, arms outstretched. There was a sharp crack and his body was jerked up in mid-flight. His shoes flew off and clattered down. The arms flailed, the body shuddered once as though the bones were trying to burst out of the skin; and then it was still, swinging gently, the feet just a yard above the edge of the teaser that masked the top of the stage from the audience. Lennox sank to his knees and began to sob. The appalled silence was jarred by a fanfare from the orchestra on the other side of the curtain. Oliver Stacy, in dinner jacket, paused long enough to vomit in the wings, then slipped through the curtain, white-faced and smiling. There was a burst of applause. His voice rang out in cheerful greeting, and the warm-up for the New Year's Day "Who He?" show began. CHAPTER XV THE BODY CAME DOWN AND JERKED THE BODY CAME DOWN AND JERKED THE BODY CAME down and jerked the body came down and jerked thebodycamedownandjerkedthebodycamedown andjerked THE. BODY. CAME. DOWN. AND. JERKED. Lennox rolled out of the bed and knelt on the floor. He leaned his elbows against the iron bedstead, pressed his palms together and pressed his lips against his hands. Alongside him, No. 17 slept open-mouthed and filled the ward with the fetor of decay. No. 8 laughed in a baby voice, No. 20 scratched methodically with a monotonous rasp. No. 5 chanted: "The Lord is my hospital, I shall not want. He marries me to green Packards. He leadeth me leadeth me leadeth me...." "No. No. No. Not a hospital. It's a jail, that's what it is," No. 9 told him. "It's a jail run by the lousy Catholics and Masons where they can pull off their crooked political deals. Nuns and Priests letting on they're nurses and doctors. Spying me out. Reporting. Giving me blue looks and electric sparks out of the walls. They know I won't let 'em run the country. I'll tell the papers. I'll tell everybody!" "Did I ever tell you about paper?" No. 10 chattered with manic brightness. "Did I ever tell you? A sheet of paper is an inclined plane. A sheet of paper with lines on it is an ink-lined plane. An inclined plane is a slope up and a slow pup is a lazy dog." There were steps behind Lennox, and a heavy voice said: "Jesus! Will you look at him? He's prayin' again." Before the attendants could throw him back into bed, Lennox got up and climbed in. They laughed ... two impervious men in identical white uniforms wearing the identical expression of indifference. The only way they could be distinguished was by their hair; one black, one red. "Got you trained, huh buster?" the red-head said. "Not this time, though. Come on."