Now he crouched in the dust behind an empty counter while Conley's footsteps approached. He held his breath when they got close, and when they passed the broken window he was very thankful. It was late afternoon and he thought Conley would go back to Central. Nobody knew much about Conley except that he represented the Machine and that he seemed to disappear within it every afternoon. So, presently, Mark crawled out of the broken window and walked down to Main Street. He looked carefully right and left and then, not seeing Conley's tall form above the traffic, he wandered slowly down the street, trying to figure things out. Why wasn't there anything worth while to do? What was the reason for all the broken windows and empty stores? Had there once been places where people could buy things like food and clothes? Maybe--before Central Audit Bureau had come into existence. Or had Central always been there? Mark saw the old lady sitting in the wheel-chair. He turned out absently to walk by her. He saw her put her foot in his way but his brain wasn't working. He stumbled over her foot. Instantly the old lady half arose from her chair as if in pain, shrieking and brandishing her cane, the leg held stiffly out in front of her. "You've injured me," she shrieked in a raucous voice. "You've hurt my lame foot!" Mark stood there dumbly. He was a young man and so he didn't at once foresee what was about to happen. A crowd gathered in no time. The old lady was putting on a show. Mark didn't get it. He would have allowed her a thousand points--even fifteen hundred--without argument. But he got the shock of his young life. "Thirty thousand points!" she screamed at him, and thrust a pad of slips at him. "Sign my slip, please." * * * * * Mark took the pad automatically. He took the pencil she held out. He started to sign. He'd never get a credit balance at the Central Bureau now, but he didn't care. Maybe he'd get in so deep they'd give him some work. The old lady's voice rose unexpectedly. "My feelings are hurt, too. He did it deliberately. Five thousand points for my injured feelings." Dazedly Mark wrote down "Thirty-five thousand and no more," and signed his name. He handed the pad back to her and started on. The crowd was leaving. But a voice stopped him. A soft voice. "Wait, son." He looked back. He started to go on, then he saw the old lady's eyes on his. "Stick around," she said. There wasn't any raucousness in her voice now. "Wait till the crowd goes. I want to talk to you." Presently he was walking beside her while she laboriously operated the two big hand-wheels that propelled the chair. Two blocks away she turned into an empty building marked "Groceries." Mark helped her cross the threshold.