to her apartment. Along about noon,
Miss Alice shows up. She's pale and determined looking, all dressed up
to travel. Her suitcase is leaking little bits and ends of clothing
and over her shoulder she's got a knapsack with her lunch in it.
Always practical, Miss Alice was.

"You aren't really thinking of leaving are you, Ma'm?" I ask, thinking
it would be a shame for a good-hearted, hard-working school teacher
like Miss Alice to leave Fremont.

"I'll thank you to mind your own business, young man!" she says
coldly, and marches into the booth and pulls the curtain shut. A
moment later I hear a coin drop, there's a flash of bright blue light,
and then dead silence.

I was the nearest one so I lifts the curtain and peeks in. Miss Alice
and her suitcase and knapsack have disappeared. I look at the screen
even though nobody needs to tell me that Miss Alice Markey has whisked
off to a world where all the men look like Rudolph Valentino and have
a fondness for old-maid school teachers. Sure enough, I was right....

About mid-August, Joe comes around and he's looking mighty worried.
"Harry," he says, "Wally Claus has disappeared."

I mull it over for a minute. "It can't be what you're thinking," I
says. "Wally's one of the most normal men in town."

We go down to see Wally's wife and I begin to get the picture. Wally
was one of those hard working, hard drinking Dutchmen with a family
about three times as big as his salary. He worked at Stellar Electric
with Joe and, like I say, sometimes he used to help Joe in his lab.

"When was the last time you saw Wally?" Joe asks gently.

Mrs. Wally is blubbering in her handkerchief and trying to hold a kid
on her lap at the same time. Two more are hanging onto her chair, and
about six others are standing around the room sucking their thumbs and
looking wide-eyed at Joe and me.

"It was p-payday," she blurts, the tears streaming down her fat
cheeks. "Wally c-comes home drunk and all I do was quietly ask him for
his paycheck. And that's the last I see of him. I d-don't know w-what
got into him!"

Anybody with half an eye, I thought, could piece together what had
happened. Wally probably had one or two at Schultz's bar and got to
feeling sorry for himself and then when he got home, he walked into a
hornet's nest. Nine kids bawling or running around and Mrs. Wally
nagging the life out of him. He must have wondered if it was worth it,
then found a quarter in his pocket and walked