ing
industriously wiping grease out of bores and actions before handing
out firearms, and a couple more making sure that the right cartridges
went with each weapon. Somebody had brought a small grinding wheel
over from Tools and plugged it in, and was grinding points on the
foils and epees. Others were collecting baseball bats, golf clubs, and
football helmets and catchers' masks. The Tool Department was being
stripped of everything that could be used as a weapon, too.

The whole store, by this time, was an approximation of Mutiny in a
Madhouse. Dressgoods was being looted by a howling mob of women, who
were pulling bolts of material from shelves and fighting among
themselves over them. Somebody had turned on the electric fans, and
long streams of flimsy fabric were blowing about like a surrealist
maypole dance. Somebody in Household Furnishings had turned on a
couple of fans, too, and a mob of hoodlums were opening cans of paint
and throwing them into the fan blades.

The little Antiques Department, in a corner of the fourth floor back
of the Gift Shoppe, was an island of peace in the general chaos. There
was only one way into it, and one of the clerks, who had gotten
himself into a suit of Fifteenth Century battle armor, was standing in
the entrance, leaning on a two-hand sword. There was blood on the long
blade, and more blood splashed on the floor in front of him. He was
being left entirely alone.

* * * * *

Hutschnecker, called to the telephone, spoke briefly, listened for a
while, spoke again in hearty thanks, and hung up.

"Macy & Gimbel's," he told Prestonby. "They heard about our
trouble--probably one of their price-spotters phoned in about it--and
they're offering to send twenty of their store-cops to help us out.
They'll be landing on our stage in eight minutes, rifles and steel
helmets."

Prestonby nodded. It would have been quite conceivable that Pelton's
chief competitor had started the riot; since they hadn't, their offer
of armed aid was just as characteristic of the bitter but
mutually-respectful rivalries of the commercial world. A few minutes
later, another call came in, this time on the visiphone. Prestonby
took it when he saw a Literates' Guards officer in the screen and
recognized him.

"That you, Prestonby?" the officer, Major Slater, asked in some
surprise. "Didn't know you were at Pelton's. What's going on, there?"

Prestonby told him, briefly.

"Yes;