hing the room.

"Come on!" hacked the A.P. man, and they scrambled from the room and
slammed the door. The doctor's coat was burning in two or three places,
and he was retching feebly on the corridor floor. They tore his coat off
and flung it back into the room.

The U.P. man, swearing horribly, dug a sizzling bit of phosphorus from
the back of his hand with a pen-knife and collapsed, sweating, when it
was out. The I.N.S. man passed him a flask and he gurgled down half a
pint of liquor. "Who flang that brick?" he asked faintly.

"Nobody," the A.P. man said gloomily. "That's the hell of it. None of
this is happening. Just the way Taft the Pretender never happened in
'03. Just the way the Pentagon Mutiny never happened in '67."

"'68," the U.P. man said faintly. "It didn't happen in '68, not '67."

The A.P. man smashed a fist into the palm of his hand and swore.
"_God_-damn," he said. "Some day I'd like to--" He broke off and was
bitterly silent.

The U.P. man must have been a little dislocated with shock and quite
drunk to talk the way he did. "Me too," he said. "Like to tell the
story. Maybe it was '67 not '68. I'm not sure now. Can't write it down
so the details get lost and then after a while it didn't happen at all.
Revolution'd be good deal. But it takes people t' make revolution.
_People._ With eyes 'n ears. 'N memories. We make things not-happen an'
we make people not-see an' not-hear...." He slumped back against the
corridor wall, nursing his burned hand. The others were watching him,
very scared.

Then the A.P. man caught sight of the Secretary of Defense striding down
the corridor, flanked by Secret Servicemen. "Mr. Steiner!" he called.
"What's the picture?"

Steiner stopped, breathing heavily, and said: "Slocum's barricaded in
the Oval Study. They don't want to smash in. He's about the only one
left. There were only fifty or so. The Acting President's taken charge
at the Study. You want to come along?"

They did, and even hauled the U.P. man after them.

The Acting President, who would be President Folsom XXV as soon as the
Electoral College got around to it, had his father's face--the petulant
lip, the soft jowl--on a hard young body. He also had an auto-rifle
ready to fire from the hip. Most of the Cabinet was present. When the
Secretary of Defense arrived, he turned on him. "Steiner," he said
nastily, "can you explain why there should be a rebellion against the
Republic in your department?"

"