ain animal nerve to
do what he did. His battered and bloodied lip curled.

"Whatdayuh think you're up to, Pun'kin-head!" he snarled slowly, his
tone dripping contempt for the insanely foolish. He laughed sourly,
"Haw-haw-haw." Then his face twisted into a confident and mocking leer.
To carry the mockery farther, a big paw reached out and grabbed the
proffered tomato from Endlich's hand. "Sure--thanks. Anything to
oblige!" He took a great bite from the fruit, clowning the action
with a forced expression of relish. "Ummm!" he grunted. In danger, he
was being the showman, playing for the approval of his pals. He was
proving his comic coolness--that even now he was master of the
situation, and was in no hurry to be rescued. "Come on, punk!" he
ordered Endlich. "Where is the next one, seeing you're so generous? Be
polite to your guest!"

Endlich handed him a second tomato. But as he did so, it seemed all the
things he dreaded would happen were breathing down his back. For the
faces that he glimpsed beyond the plastic showed the twisted expressions
that betray the point where savage humor imperceptibly becomes
murderous. A dozen blasters were leveled at him.

But the eyes of the men outside showed, too, the kind of interest that
any odd procedure can command. They stood still for a moment, watching,
commenting:

"Hey--Neely! See if you can down the next one with one bite!... Don't
eat 'em all, Neely! Save some for us!..."

Endlich was following no complete plan. He had only the feeling that
somewhere here there might be a dramatic touch that, by a long chance,
would yield him a toehold on the situation. Without a word, he gave
Neely a third tomato. Then a fourth and a fifth....

Neely kept gobbling and clowning.

Yeah--but can this sort of horseplay go on until one man has consumed an
entire bushel of tomatoes? The question began to shine speculatively in
the faces of the onlookers. It began to appeal to their wolfish sense of
comedy. And it started to betray itself--in another manner--in Neely's
face.

* * * * *

After the fifteenth tomato, he burped and balked. "That's enough kiddin'
around, Pun'kin-head," he growled. "Get away with your damned garden
truck! I should be beatin' you to a grease-spot right this minute!
Why--I--"

Then Neely tried to lunge for the blaster. As Endlich squeezed the
trigger, he turned the weapon aside a trifle, so that the beam of energy
flicked past N