ut
of his bill-fold, and turned out the office-light. After glancing up
and down the hall, he stuck the stamp on the door so that it would
tear if the door opened.

* * * * *

In the morning, the stamp was still intact, and it was hard to see,
even in broad daylight. The paper in the curve-tracer was perfectly
blank, and there was no punch-card in the transmitter head. It might
still be an elaborate joke, but the chances were small. He might be
cracking up, or may have imagined the whole thing. The best thing to
do would be to put it entirely out of his mind.

He succeeded in this until mid-morning, when ICWEA called him a
"handsome devil." He jerked the punch-card out of the transmitter and
called Vic.

"Hermosa."

That voice! It made chills run up and down his backbone. A man had no
right to a voice like that. "Vic? Bring up the calculations for the
last batch of punch-cards, will you? I want to check something. The
card numbers are F-141 through F-152."

"Right away."

Vic wasn't especially gabby. A good-looking young Latin, who knew as
much math as most, they'd probably lose him to the draft any day now.
Presently, someone knocked on the door.

"Come in."

It wasn't Vic; it was the girl. She laid the pack of problems and
their attached work-sheets on the desk, shook her hair into place--did
she even have to comb it in the morning when she got up?--looked him
briefly in the eye, and turned to go.

"How is Vic these days?" Norm inquired, whimsically. "Is he able to
get about?"

The girl smiled politely at this obvious badinage and left.

He checked the problems against cards as he came to them. He knew the
punch code well enough to do this in his head, since the kind of
operation indicated was quite obvious. But the problems ended with
F-151, and the "handsome devil" card was F-152. He got on the phone
again.

"Vic? What's your next card number?"

"F-153." One expected a little guy to have a high voice; this one was
quite deep, but soft.

"Are the cards numbered very far ahead?"

"We usually number a couple of dozen cards, and assign the numbers to
the problems as they come in, from a scratch sheet."

"Any of the cards been lost?"

"Oh yes, on occasion. So far, we've recovered them all--there are only
two rooms where they could be. Up there or down here."

_That voice!_ How could a man have a voice like that? And why should
he care if one did? Why even notice