er than
ordinary in his confusion. He had walked the city mile after mile
in his puzzlement. And he had sat in the little park for hours
and studied the situation. And he had worked at his own desk for
an outlandish long time.

Well, he would go to the doctor. A man is obliged to refrain from
making a fool of himself to the world at large, but to his own
lawyer, his priest, or his doctor he will sometimes have to come
as a fool. By their callings they are restrained from scoffing
openly.

Dr. Mason was not particularly a friend. Charles Vincent realized
with some unease that he did not have any particular friends,
only acquaintances and associates. It was as though he were of a
species slightly apart from his fellows. He wished now a little
that he had a particular friend.

But Dr. Mason was an acquaintance of some years, had the
reputation of being a good doctor, and besides Vincent had now
arrived at his office and been shown in. He would either have
to--well, that was as good a beginning as any.

"Doctor, I am in a predicament. I will either have to invent some
symptoms to account for my visit here, or make an excuse and
bolt, or tell you what is bothering me, even though you will
think I am a new sort of idiot."

"Vincent, every day people invent symptoms to cover their visits
here, and I know that they have lost their nerve about the real
reason for coming. And every day people do make excuses and bolt.
But experience tells me that I will get a larger fee if you
tackle the third alternative. And, Vincent, there is no new sort
of idiot."

Vincent said, "It may not sound so silly if I tell it quickly. I
awoke this morning to some very puzzling incidents. It seemed
that time itself had stopped, or that the whole world had gone
into super-slow motion. The water would neither flow nor boil,
and fire would not heat food. The clocks, which I first believed
had stopped, crept along at perhaps a minute an hour. The people
I met in the streets appeared dead, frozen in lifelike attitudes.
And it was only by watching them for a very long time that I
perceived that they did indeed have motion. One car I saw
creeping slower than the most backward snail, and a dead man at
the wheel of it. I went to it, opened the door, and put on the
brake. I realized after a time that the man was not dead. But he
bent forward and broke his face on the steering wheel. It must
have taken a full minute for his head to travel no more th