elves. It is said, and
credited, that people began to count by fives and tens from the
number of fingers on their hands. But before the people the--by
the reason that they had--counted by sixes and twelves. But Sixty
is the number of time, divisible by both, for both must live
together in time, though not on the same plane of time--" Much of
the rest was scattered. And it was while trying to set the
hundreds of unordered clay tablets in proper sequence that
Charles Vincent created the legend of the ghost in the museum.

For he spent his multi-hundred-hour nights there studying and
classifying. Naturally he could not work without light, and
naturally he could be seen when he sat still at his studies. But
as the slow-moving guards attempted to close in on him, he would
move to avoid them, and his speed made him invisible to them.
They were a nuisance and had to be discouraged. He belabored them
soundly and they became less eager to try to capture him.

His only fear was that they would some time try to shoot him to
see if he were ghost or human. He could avoid a seen shot, which
would come at no more than two and a half times his own greatest
speed. But an unperceived shot could penetrate dangerously, even
fatally, before he twisted away from it.

He had fathered legends of other ghosts, that of the Central
Library, that of University Library, that of the John Charles
Underwood Jr. Technical Library. This plurality of ghosts tended
to cancel out each other and bring believers into ridicule. Even
those who had seen him as a ghost did not admit that they
believed in the ghosts.

He went back to Dr. Mason for his monthly checkup.

"You look terrible," said the Doctor. "Whatever it is, you have
changed. If you can afford it, you should take a long rest."

"I have the means," said Charles Vincent, "and that is just what
I will do. I'll take a rest for a year or two."

He had begun to begrudge the time that he must spend at the
world's pace. From now on he was regarded as a recluse. He was
silent and unsociable, for he found it a nuisance to come back to
the common state to engage in conversation, and in his special
state voices were too slow-pitched to intrude into his consciousness.

Except that of the man whose face he had never seen.

"You are making very tardy progress," said the man. Once more
they were in a dark club. "Those who do not show more progress we
cannot use. After all, you are only a vestigial. I