e because he liked it best.

Further reverie became an effort as Mr. Chambers felt himself
succumbing to weariness. He undressed and went to bed. For an
hour he lay awake, assailed by vague fears he could neither
define nor understand.

When finally he dozed off it was to lose himself in a series of
horrific dreams. He dreamed first that he was a castaway on a
tiny islet in mid-ocean, that the waters around the island teemed
with huge poisonous sea snakes ... hydrophinnae ... and that
steadily those serpents were devouring the island.

In another dream he was pursued by a horror which he could
neither see nor hear, but only could imagine. And as he sought to
flee he stayed in the one place. His legs worked frantically,
pumping like pistons, but he could make no progress. It was as if
he ran upon a treadway.

Then again the terror descended on him, a black, unimagined thing
and he tried to scream and couldn't. He opened his mouth and
strained his vocal cords and filled his lungs to bursting with
the urge to shriek ... but not a sound came from his lips.

* * * * *

All next day he was uneasy and as he left the house that evening,
at precisely seven o'clock, he kept saying to himself: "You must
not forget tonight! You must remember to stop and get your
cigar!"

The street light at the corner of Jefferson was still out and in
front of 816 the cemented driveway was still boarded off.
Everything was the same as the night before.

And now, he told himself, the Red Star confectionery is in the
next block. I must not forget tonight. To forget twice in a row
would be just too much.

He grasped that thought firmly in his mind, strode just a bit
more rapidly down the street.

But at the corner he stopped in consternation. Bewildered, he
stared down the next block. There was no neon sign, no splash of
friendly light upon the sidewalk to mark the little store tucked
away in this residential section.

He stared at the street marker and read the word slowly: GRANT. He
read it again, unbelieving, for this shouldn't be Grant Street, but
Marshall. He had walked two blocks and the confectionery was between
Marshall and Grant. He hadn't come to Marshall yet ... and here was
Grant.

Or had he, absent-mindedly, come one block farther than he
thought, passed the store as on the night before?

For the first time in twenty years, Mr. Chambers retraced his
steps. He walked back to Jefferson, the