n't get it. He would have allowed her a thousand points--even fifteen
hundred--without argument. But he got the shock of his young life.

"Thirty thousand points!" she screamed at him, and thrust a pad of slips
at him. "Sign my slip, please."

* * * * *

Mark took the pad automatically. He took the pencil she held out. He
started to sign. He'd never get a credit balance at the Central Bureau
now, but he didn't care. Maybe he'd get in so deep they'd give him some
work.

The old lady's voice rose unexpectedly. "My feelings are hurt, too. He
did it deliberately. Five thousand points for my injured feelings."

Dazedly Mark wrote down "Thirty-five thousand and no more," and signed
his name. He handed the pad back to her and started on. The crowd was
leaving.

But a voice stopped him. A soft voice. "Wait, son." He looked back. He
started to go on, then he saw the old lady's eyes on his. "Stick
around," she said. There wasn't any raucousness in her voice now. "Wait
till the crowd goes. I want to talk to you."

Presently he was walking beside her while she laboriously operated the
two big hand-wheels that propelled the chair. Two blocks away she turned
into an empty building marked "Groceries." Mark helped her cross the
threshold.

Inside, she amazed him by springing out of the chair and standing quite
steadily. She was small and she wasn't as old and wrinkled as he had
thought. "You get in the chair," she said. "I'll push you. I need the
exercise."

A minute later she was pushing him briskly along the street while Mark
sat, still half dazed, in the wicker chair, her old red shawl was across
his lap.

"Get cramps in my legs, to say nothing of my bottom," she observed,
"sitting there all day." She saw him stiffen. "Oh, you needn't be
shocked. After all, I'm old enough to be your grandmother. I was born in
1940, you know."

"Nineteen-forty," Mark repeated, wonderingly. "Gee, that was back in the
days when everybody worked. I wish _I_ could work."

"Well, it's a changed world," she observed. "In those days, you _had_ to
work."

At that instant Mark heard the ominous slapping footsteps. He looked
ahead, and there was Conley, easily noticeable because of the type N hat
a head above everybody else, coming toward them. Mark snatched up the
red shawl and wrapped it around his face to the nose and pulled his hat
low over his eyes. He watched from under the type L brim while Conley
approac