lighter slipped out of my tight fingers and fell on the floor
and I bent over to pick it up. My head swelled to twice its size, my
glasses slid down a little on my sweaty nose, and the tiny red veins
in my eyes grew from a thread to a rope to a flag to a tapestry of
crimson rage and the noise abruptly stopped. And Art began to bellow.
I stood up. The television set was smoking.

* * * * *

Well, it was fast while it lasted. Art didn't really need the fire
department. There wasn't any flame to speak of. Someone pulled the
plug from the wall and rolled the set out and used the hand
extinguisher on the burnt innards of the set and with the rear exhaust
fan going the last of the bitter smoke was drifting out before the
sirens pulled up in front. The firemen were relieved, not angry, as
they always are, and Art in his misery was thoughtful enough to slip a
square bottle in the pocket of the lieutenant in charge. It was cold
outside, at that. Freddie said so, when he left; there was no reason
to stay at Art's any more when most other bars would have the Roller
Derby. I watched him go, and mentally cursed the bearings in his new
car. Well, fairly new. I went home. Helen was in bed when I got there,
probably asleep. She was still probably asleep when I left for work in
the morning. She gets like that.

The next day at Art's there was a big space lighter in color than the
surrounding wall where the television set had stood. I asked Art
about it.

He didn't know. The serviceman had come out and collected it, clucking
in dismay at the mess the extinguisher had left. No, no idea what
caused it. Short circuit wouldn't make it that bad; fuses should have
blown first. They'd find it, though. Art hoped it wouldn't be the
picture tube; that wasn't covered in his service policy, and those
tubes in that size cost money. Anything else was covered. At that, he
was better off than Freddie.

I looked up. "What's the matter with Freddie?"

He told me. Freddie had ruined his motor on the way home last night.
What hadn't blown out the exhaust pipe had gone out the hood, and
right after his ninety-day guarantee had expired.

I remembered what I had thought of last night. "How did he do that?"

Art didn't know. He had been driving along and--that was it. The car
was in the garage with nothing left between the radiator and the
firewall and Freddie was trying to get something out of the insurance
company. Fat