I know it was foolish, but I had to ask--and none of the others seemed
to think it peculiar. They leaned forward with me and waited for
Dugan's answer. He looked at me, still smiling, and as I stared at
those blurry eyes behind the vast thick lenses, I began to shake with
uncertainty. In all that blur there was a strangeness, a something--Oh,
hell!
Suddenly Belcher began to laugh. He laughed so hard he overturned his
wine bottle and we all had to scurry out of the wet. When it came time
to sit down again, the spell was broken. Anyway, the luncheon was over.
When I got outside, Joey was standing there with Dugan. He was saying,
"I'm afraid you haven't got much of a yarn there."
Dugan said, "I suppose so." Only he didn't seem put out. He shook hands
with us cheerfully, said he hoped he'd see us again, and turned toward
Broadway.
We all waved once, just to be polite, and then lost all interest. We
turned on Joey to see if we could get the price of that lunch out of
him, and we kidded Jinx about the lousy stories he picked up. Maybe it
was because some of us felt a little self-conscious. I know I glanced
over my shoulder and felt guilty when I noticed Dugan standing on the
corner. He was watching us intently and adjusting his glasses with both
hands.
Then I stopped haggling with Joey and turned around because--well,
because it occurred to me that cameras of the Twenty-third Century
could be so small you couldn't see them at that distance. All that
flash and glitter couldn't be coming just from Dugan's glasses. Yes,
brother, I turned around while Gray's _Elegy_ went thrumming through my
head.
It could be Belcher or Jinx or Mallison, or the little guy with the
pipe, but I don't think so. I've got a pretty good idea who it is,
because something suddenly occurred to me, I turned around to give
Dugan a nice full-face and I waved....
Because one of those scraps of paper I thought had been blown in my
window was marked very peculiarly in red: _Load Only in Total Darkness.
Expires Dec. 18, 2241._