r two minutes, or two and a half. It
is always hard to judge time, and now it had become all but
impossible.

"I am still hungry," said Charles Vincent, "but it would be
foolhardy to wait for service here. Should I help myself? They
will not mind if they are dead. And if they are not dead, in any
case it seems that I am invisible to them."

He wolfed several rolls. He opened a bottle of milk and held it
upside down over his glass while he ate another roll. Liquids had
all become perversely slow.

But he felt better for his erratic breakfast. He would have paid
for it, but how?

He left the cafeteria and walked about the town as it seemed
still to be quite early, though one could depend on neither sun
nor clock for the time any more. The traffic lights were
unchanging. He sat for a long time in a little park and watched
the town and the big clock in the Commerce Building tower; but
like all the clocks it was either stopped or the hand would creep
too slowly to be seen.

It must have been just about an hour till the traffic lights
changed, but change they did at last. By picking a point on the
building across the street and watching what moved past it, he
found that the traffic did indeed move. In a minute or so, the
entire length of a car would pass the given point.

He had, he recalled, been very far behind in his work and it had
been worrying him. He decided to go to the office, early as it
was or seemed to be.

He let himself in. Nobody else was there. He resolved not to look
at the clock and to be very careful of the way he handled all
objects because of his new propensity for breaking things. This
considered, all seemed normal there. He had said the day before
that he could hardly catch up on his work if he put in two days
solid. He now resolved at least to work steadily until something
happened, whatever it was.

For hour after hour he worked on his tabulations and reports.
Nobody else had arrived. Could something be wrong? Certainly
something was wrong. But this was not a holiday. That was not it.

Just how long can a stubborn and mystified man plug away at his
task? It was hour after hour after hour. He did not become hungry
nor particularly tired. And he did get through a lot of work.

"It must be half done. However it has happened, I have caught up
on at least a day's work. I will keep on."

He must have continued silently for another eight or ten hours.

He was caught up completely on his b