other colleagues, had long before noted which cord went where. In reality, the signal was given by a foot switch.

"What's the flap? I'd no sooner got on the wire last night, this morn- ing really, when the Chief told me to get up here—and right now, too- and the only way, a 5-hour train ride from Liverpool. Aiee! My back! A night train filled with West End mods and rockers. If they weren't fighting, they were mating!"

Miss Pennythwaite looked at him with amusement. "You should have fit in quite well. Dressed like that, if I didn't know you, I would say you were scarcely into your majority, less, in fact. You know, that "Mod" haircut does something for you."

661 laughed rather loudly and shook his head, feeling the long hair brush the back of his high collared cotton shirt. “What is it that you say when someone mentions your hair-oh, yes! 'I've just washed it and cahn't do a thing wiv' it.'” Miss Pennythwaite looked at him coldly. "Still," he continued, there's better than six months work growing that bush. Sort of sorry to see it go crowning beauty, you know.” There was even less reaction this time. Odd sense of humor she had, he thought. I wonder what she'd be like in bed? That thought had oc- curred at one time and in one form or another to each of the possibly thirty young steely-eyed young men who met Miss Pennythwaite in the course of their work, for Standard Imports, Limited.

"Have a ciggie, ducks,” he said, offering her a Player from a fili- greed case, packing the tobacco down by tapping the cylinder against the case with his long, slender white fingers. She shook her head in re- fusal just as one of a pair of lights mounted in front of her glowed green. "You better hadn't, either. The Chief wants you."

661 bowed very slightly to her, wheeled on his absurd heels and walked through the massive door behind the desk, caressing the lion's head doorknob as he closed it behind him.

“Ah, 661. Do come in-be seated.' The Chief, or “0” as he was sometimes known, was seated facing the door, a large, austerely im- posing man whose appearance blended with the surroundings. “661, you've met-" and with a sidewise gesture of the head, the Chief indi- cated a figure seated in the corner, just out of the pool of light from the green-shaded lamp on the desk. 661 smiled and said “Oh, yes. In- deed,” and he nodded a measured greeting to the dark, sardonic face

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