"Make it a triple," the little man called, and the bartender smiled as
if his face hurt.
There was a pained expression on Ernie. He sank his head into his arms.
"Cheer up," the man said. "It isn't worth all that."
"What isn't?"
"Be happy, man."
"I'll be happy when I get out of here, but I'll be hilarious when I
find out the score--and I plan to be hilarious before I get happy. Is
that clear?"
"You talk as if you had been drinking already, man. Snap out of it. I
like men with clear heads."
It was not only a delaying tactic, Ernie thought; it was plainly a
case of nerve-busting. They were going to force it out of him. He had
already conceded they were not a gang of thieves using his basement
for a hideaway; they were not digging a secret tunnel for the Defense
Department.
"You like men with clear heads? What am I, some sort of recruit?"
"Now!" the man exclaimed, suddenly thrust into a new frame of mind. "We
are now on the same plane. You _are_ a recruit and we can understand
each other now."
"So where is this?"
"This is your house, of course, but we're not quite there yet. We're in
what you would call--oh, another dimension."
Ernie reached for the drink and sniffed it. Its smell fitted the
situation. "And what does that mean?"
"Oh, you and I have lived in the same vicinity all our lives,
even crossed each other's paths, but we are in different
dimensions--different worlds in the same place."
"You mean like Mars and Earth?"
"I mean like Mars _in_ Earth, or vice versa," the man answered.