Chapter II: Part 2

"Stop her!" Agatha cried. "Fetch her back, Chad! She may splatter the auto and ruin the finish!"

Chadwick reached out toward Toffee, but just as his hand went to her, there was a terrible splintering sound, and the railing began to crumble. Then the railing gave way entirely and Toffee's small figure pitched forward, plunged into the darkness below.

On the landing the three tensed, then started a bit as a dull thump echoed up to them from below.

"Oh, gracious!" Agatha wailed. "I just know she struck the auto!"

"What do you suppose ever made her do it?" Chadwick mused. He shrugged. "Just suicidal, I guess, by nature."

"You'll wash the car," Agatha said adamantly. "I won't do it."

Beside them, Marc had turned away from the railing and was peering anxiously down the darkened stairway. A smile suddenly lighted his face as the ancient boards sent up their accustomed cry.

"Heavens!" Agatha said. "Whatever could it be?"

"I haven't the faintest ..." Chadwick said. "One thing, it surely couldn't be the child."

* * * * *

But it was the child. Emerging from the darkness, Toffee raced up the stairs, smiling and completely unmarked. For a brief instant her eyes flicked in Marc's direction and her lips silently formed the word "thanks."

Marc understood. It was only through his concentration that she had survived. As long as he was aware of her and "wished" her into being, she was indestructible. Her life could be threatened only when his was.

"Lord," Chadwick breathed. "The little waif's all right!"

"Chad!" Agatha cried, turning to him. "Do you realize what this means? We ... we ... I almost can't say it, it's so wonderful ... we can be _immortal_! All we have to do is get the formula. No one will be able to kill us! We can go where we choose, take what we like, and no one can ever stop us. Perhaps we could organize a whole band of immortals and...."

"Certainly!" Chadwick cried, catching her enthusiasm. "We could rule the world if we chose! Who would there be to stop us? We'd be indestructible!"

They turned to Toffee in unison.

"What's the formula?" Chadwick asked, beginning to look a little feverish. "Tell us what it is."

For a moment Toffee was pensive, then a touch of craftiness came into her childish face. "I'll do better than that," she said. "I'll take you to a whole bottle of the pills, all made up and ready to take."

"Wonderful!" Agatha cried.

Mr. Culpepper was suddenly recalled to them by a sudden, triumphant cry that issued from the inner reaches of the abandoned office. In a body they turned back and crowded through the door.

"Fancy that!" the little man was shouting. "Just fancy that!" A smile of amazement was on his sharp-featured face.

"Have you got it?" Marc asked, running to his side.

"I certainly have," Mr. Culpepper said happily. "It was a very difficult experiment, but I got it. And will you be surprised!"

"What has he got?" Chadwick asked.

"Perhaps it would be better not to ask," Agatha said. "From the way he's been behaving it might be anything."

Chadwick nodded. "I wouldn't be surprised. Besides, we've other fish to fry now. Let's be on our way." He started to the door. "I'll get the car started and you bring them down."

When he had gone, Agatha stepped over to the doorway and motioned with her gun. "Come, come," she said brightly. "Time to be leaving, everyone."

Toffee promptly took to the stairs, but Marc and Mr. Culpepper seemed to hesitate, too absorbed in a whispered conversation to take much note of anything else.

"You could have knocked me over with a noodle," Mr. Culpepper was saying. "I simply couldn't believe it at first."

"Well, what is it?" Marc asked impatiently. "For Pete's sake, tell me!"

The little man leaned closer to Marc's ear. "Common spirits!" he hissed importantly. "Whiskey!"

"No!" Marc was incredulous. "You must have made some mist...!"

"Here, here," Agatha said, making impatient motions with her gun. "No loitering. I'm really not going to speak to you again."

"That's a break," Marc said.

He and Mr. Culpepper started forward and as they passed the inverted crate in the center of the room Marc dropped momentarily behind. When he emerged a moment later a rather singular bulge had appeared in the region of his shirt front, and he was clutching his stomach.

"What's the matter with you?" Agatha asked wearily.

"Bellyache," Marc announced flatly, struggling past her. "You make me sick at my stomach."

Agatha's expression became pained. "Vile little boy," she murmured.

* * * * *

It was dark when the delivery truck nosed out of the alley and headed back toward the city. Having locked the doors to the rear compartment from the outside, Agatha had taken her place beside Chadwick in the front, her pistol draped elegantly over her shoulder. She had been keeping a sharp eye trained toward the compartment, but it was too dark back there for her to see much. Her charges, however, seemed disinclined toward revolt. In fact, as the trip wore on, they appeared to become positively hilarious about the whole thing. Soft tittering occasionally issued from the darkness, sometimes interlaced with boisterous guffaws. Agatha wondered about this but didn't discover the reason for it until the truck reached its destination and pulled to a stop in the parking lot behind Marc's office building. When she unlocked the doors and reopened them, Marc, Toffee and Mr. Culpepper peered out at her owlishly, swaying together in silent harmony.

"Good ol' Aggie," Marc giggled, dropping his appropriated bottle shatteringly at the woman's feet. "Long may she rave."

"Well, I'll be!" Agatha murmured. "They're drunk as skunks, the lot of them."

"Eh?" Chadwick inquired, moving to her side. "Who's drunk?"

"The tykes," Agatha said, "and the old man. They're lubricated, you might say, like a lawn mower in May."

Chadwick peered inside, gazed unbelievingly at the swaying trio. He wagged a finger. "Shame," he said. He reached inside and lifted Toffee out.

Made forgetful of her transformation by her recent libations, Toffee twined her arms around Chadwick's neck.

"Hello, handsome," she cooed throatily.

"Put her down," Agatha snapped. "There's something not quite right about that child. I don't like the funny way she's looking at you. I won't stand for it."

Apparently Chadwick, too, had noticed something a bit unusual about the infant in his arms, but was not entirely displeased. He smiled confusedly. "She's only a youngster," he said.

"I don't care," Agatha retorted. "Youngster or not, no female is going to look at you like that and get away with it. Why, even at twenty I hadn't a gleam in my eye like that."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that, my dear," Chadwick said. "I remember a night when you were only eighteen...."

"Enough!" Agatha commanded with agitation. "There's something improper about that child and you're to put her down this instant. I shudder to think what she'll be like when she grows up. If she ever does, that is."

At this juncture Mr. Culpepper hopped out of the truck, teetered precariously on one foot for a moment, and sprawled out on the ground. Propping his head up on one elbow, he gazed up at Agatha, a new boldness in his eye. He winked debonairly.

"Hi, yuh, toots," he gurgled.

Agatha appeared to have bitten into a sour apple. "Ugh!" she said. "How depraved!"

Except for occasional dim lights on the stair landings the office building was completely dark. The labored progress of the strange party wending its way to the fourth floor was accompanied by a fruity assortment of stumblings, curses and giggles. When they finally arrived at the offices of the Pillsworth Advertising Agency, Marc handed his keys to Mr. Culpepper under the false impression that the little man could better negotiate the keyhole. To the befogged scientist, however, the lock was a writhing, squirming thing that constantly and with utter perverseness, avoided his grasp. The struggle became a very personal thing with the little man. He threw himself against the door with all his might.

"Won't hold still, eh?" he challenged. "Well, we'll see about that!"

With a snort of disgust, Agatha took the keys from the little man, shoved him aside, and opened the door. With a curt nod she directed the others inside.

* * * * *

The journey through the outer office was accomplished without mishap, though Mr. Culpepper, running afoul of a swivel chair, had to be restrained from attacking the whirling piece of furniture bodily. Marc and Toffee took him in charge and guided him gently into Marc's private office, where Agatha and Chadwick had preceded them and turned on the lights.

Agatha turned on Toffee threateningly. "Well, we're here," she said. "Where are the pills?"

Toffee nodded toward the desk. "Over there," she said. "The green bottle."

At the sight of the bottle both Agatha and Chadwick seemed to lose a good deal of their dignified reserve; they fairly trampled each other in a rush for the desk. Reaching the bottle, they grappled openly across the desk for its possession. Marc and Toffee dropped Mr. Culpepper to the lounge and stood by for developments.

"Give it here!" Agatha shrilled. "Let me have it, do you hear!"

"I'll let you have it right enough," Chadwick grunted back at her. "I'll let you have it right in the eye with my fist."

"Louse!" Agatha yelled. "I'm going to be head of this organization. I have the brains anyway."

"Since when?" Chadwick jeered. "If it weren't for me you'd still be carrying grog behind a bar."

"Yes," Agatha said evilly, trying to twist the bottle out of his hand, "and you, sponge that you are, would be soaking it up as fast as I could carry it. Give me that bottle, you old rummy."

"Take your grasping claws off it," Chadwick said levelly, "before I lose my temper. I'll see that the pills are handled properly."

"Properly for whom?" Agatha rasped. "You'd hog them all for yourself, that's what you'd do!"

Both of them stood their ground. The struggle was apparently one to the finish; obviously whichever of them emerged the victor would be in control of the other forever after. Deep within them primitive instincts had been set to work to choose the chieftain ... or chieftainess, as the case might be ... of their proposed "organization." As the contest left the field of invective and entered onto the more taxing one of physical, brute force, they both seemed to forget their captives. Dropping their guns to the floor, first Agatha, then Chadwick, they shoved their free hands in each other's faces and began to push. At this, Marc and Toffee, with a little cry of triumph, acted as a team in swooping away from the lounge and retrieving the guns from the floor.

Looking somewhat like an infant Annie Oakley, Toffee stepped back, aimed her pistol in the general direction of the battling Harpers and shouted, "Stick 'em up!"

But the Harpers had other things on their minds. Chadwick had just let out an enraged bellow as Agatha's even, white teeth had bitten into one of his fingers.

Toffee looked helplessly at Marc. "What'll we do?" she asked.

Marc was already doing it. Aiming at the ceiling, he brought a shower of plaster thunderously down over the scene of the battle. The Harpers instantly became transfixed, a frozen study of hand-to-hand combat. Leaning over the table, their faces almost together, they stared fixedly at each other through a screen of fingers. They had the look of people suddenly remembering something very important.

"Hands up!" Toffee piped.

* * * * *

The Harpers came to life in the same moment and reacted with their customary single-mindedness. Two pairs of hands shot into the air, and as a result the bottle crashed to the top of the desk, pills rolling in all directions. The desk and portions of the floor around the desk seemed to have been the scene of a recent snowstorm.

"I'll keep them covered," Toffee told Marc. "You get the police."

"The police?" Marc said. "How will we explain who they are? With their new faces, I mean. For that matter, how will we explain who _we_ are? The cops are looking for us, too, you know."

"I see what you mean," Toffee said thoughtfully. "It's rather an impasse, isn't it?" She turned to Mr. Culpepper who, roused by the sound of the shot, was now weaving his way toward them. "What about that antidote?" she asked him. "If whiskey's supposed to restore us, heaven knows we've had whiskey aplenty."

"Takes time," the little man said thickly. "Mustn't expect miracles, you know."

"Oh, mustn't I?" Toffee said with sudden heat. "You change me into a miserable little blob of flab and then you have the gall to tell me not to expect miracles. That's a laugh ... a fair howl."

The little man chuckled. "It is rather humorous, isn't it?" he said.

"I ought to kick in your bridgework," Toffee said dully.

"You don't like me," Mr. Culpepper said with no particular expression. "You think I'm disgusting."

"You think you're kidding," Toffee said. "You've just shown real insight."

"Thank you," the little man said gravely. "Sometimes I think...."

In a start of surprise he lurched to one side, grasping a chair for support. His eyes, like Agatha's and Chadwick's, were fastened on Marc and Toffee. Suddenly, the two erstwhile youngsters had begun to stretch upward like a pair of extending telescopes. They were growing and aging with the speed of lightning, it seemed. In a matter of seconds Marc became once again a tall, serious-eyed businessman ... one that had unaccountably rolled up his trousers to go wading. At his side Toffee was again a scantily clad redhead ... a fine figure of a girl with a fine figure. The effect was impressive to say the least. The Harpers gasped in unison.

Toffee stretched out one of her exquisite legs and surveyed it with satisfaction. "Well, that's more like it," she said happily. "A girl can really get places with a pair of pins like that."

"I told you!" Agatha shrieked. "I told you there was something funny about her. Only it isn't funny!"

"Oh, Lord," Chadwick murmured. "I've never seen anything so weird in all my life. How did they manage it?"

"Don't ask me," Agatha said unhappily. "I don't like to even think about it."

Marc had also stretched out a leg, but the sight of it seemed to give him no particular pleasure. Hastily, still holding his gun on Agatha and Chadwick, he reached out and rolled down his trousers.

"Well, thank heaven that's over," he sighed. "What a relief."

"Hypnosis," Chadwick said to Agatha. "That's what it is. Either they hypnotized us into thinking they were children a while ago, or they're hypnotizing us now to make us think they're adults. I wonder which they really are?"

"I don't care," Agatha said with sudden disillusion. "I don't care if they're really a pair of Newfoundland puppies. I don't care about anything anymore."

"I told you," Mr. Culpepper said to Toffee. "It worked like a charm. Now you don't have to be sore at me any more."

Toffee favored the little man with a radiant smile. "I could kiss you," she said recklessly.

"Please do," Mr. Culpepper said.

"Later," Toffee said. "Much later." She turned to Marc. "The decks are clear. Call the cops. Let's get rid of these regal rats."

Marc nodded and retired to the telephone. "We can say they broke in here," he said, "if all else fails."

Toffee, in the meantime, had leveled her gun on the Harpers. "Turn-about is some fun, eh, kids?" she said. "And while we're waiting for the cops, why don't you tell us what really happened to the Duchess of Windsor's jewels? Remember, anything you say will be used to hang you."

Mr. Culpepper teetered to Toffee's side. Screwing his face into what he fondly believed to be a romantic pucker, he lifted himself to his toes and growled, "Kiss me, baby," a la Clark Gable. He wavered a moment and then fell forward.

* * * * *

It might have been the perverse paw of destiny that sent the little man crashing against Toffee. Otherwise, the situation involving the Harpers, Mr. Culpepper and Fixage might easily have righted itself on the spot. The Harpers might have been carted off to the pokey in chains; Mr. Culpepper might have returned to his laboratory for a late pot of coffee; Fixage might have become an unpleasant memory, and Marc and Toffee might have been free to disport themselves in any way that pleased them. It might have happened that way. But it didn't.

Under Mr. Culpepper's sudden weight Toffee tottered a moment, then crumpled to the floor, dropping her gun. She showed splendid presence of mind in retrieving the gun swiftly enough to ward off any attack from the Harpers. But she wasn't quick enough to prevent the enterprising twosome from scooping up handfuls of the scattered pills and greedily popping them into their mouths.

"Don't!" Toffee screamed, leaping to her feet. "Spit them out!"

Agatha swallowed mightily and gasped for air. She laughed shortly. "Too late now," she said triumphantly.

"You've no idea," Toffee said. "If you did, you'd be courting a stomach pump with everything that's in you."

Marc slapped the telephone receiver back into place. "Good night," he murmured, aghast. "Whole handfuls of the things!"

Chadwick managed to choke down his generous grabbings. "Well," he said with satisfaction, "now we'll see what's what."

"And probably a good deal more," Toffee said. "If we can bear to look." She glanced down at Mr. Culpepper who was still resting quietly on the floor. "What can we do about it?"

The little man shrugged, uninterested. "You cheated," he mumbled. "You ducked."

"We ought to do something right away," Marc put in. "Maybe a stomach pump isn't such a bad idea. In a minute it'll be too late. There's a...."

It was already too late.

The Harpers had suddenly turned an unfortunate shade of whitish-green. They clutched at each other in a paroxysm of agony, shuddering from head to toe. Then, seized by a rending spasm that nearly doubled them, they slid soundlessly to the floor.

"Oh, Chad...!" Agatha whimpered. Her head fell loosely to the pit of Chadwick's stomach. "Ohhhh!" And then she passed out.

Chadwick was unmoved by his mate's pitiful lamentations; he had been dead to the world even before he touched the floor.

Toffee regarded the crumpled figures at her feet. "How terrible!" she breathed. "Do you suppose they're dead?"

Marc shook his head. "They're still breathing," he said.

Mr. Culpepper, after a number of false starts, finally made it to his feet. His eyes wandered loosely about the room for a time, and finally arrived at the bodies on the floor.

"With all their fine manners," he mused, "you'd think they'd find a more suitable place to retire."

"Oh, shut up," Marc sighed. "If you don't I may cram a few of those pills down your gullet."

* * * * *

Agatha and Chadwick remained in their state of enforced slumber only a few minutes. Then, almost at the same time, they awoke and opened their eyes. Chadwick glanced dazedly around, stretched luxuriously and yawned a cavernous yawn. Agatha, however, seemed to suffer no after effects at all. She merely opened her eyes, surveyed the situation briefly and went directly to the business at hand. Getting to her feet, she regarded Marc and Toffee triumphantly.

"Well," she sneered, "now we'll see about that turn-about stuff. You needn't try to scare us with those guns any longer, either." She turned and helped Chadwick to his feet.

"What happened?" Chadwick asked. "What hit me?"

"The pills," Agatha reminded him. "We're all set, love. We've nothing more to worry about. Shall we quit this dreadful place?"

"Oh, yes," Chadwick smiled. "We did take the pills, didn't we? We're bullet-proof. To coin an expression, the world is practically ours."

Agatha took him by the arm. "Yes, dear," she said gaily. "Tax free, too. Shall we duck out and rifle a few banks just for a starter?" her voice was exuberant, almost giddy.

"Right-ho," Chadwick said agreeably. "And maybe a jewelry shop or two, eh? Just for good luck."

They started happily toward the door, too wrapped up in their gold-tinted dreams of the future to notice the fascinated, expectant gaze of their erstwhile adversaries. They were almost into the outer office when it happened. Unquestionably it was the shock of their lives.

They seemed to melt like popsicles in a furnace. They dwindled so swiftly there was the faint sound of disturbed atmosphere, a little rush of air. Suddenly their clothes were hanging loosely about them, the ends of their sleeves trailing on the floor. And they were still melting. Agatha screamed with terror; and even as she did her voice faded away into a thin, childish wail.

"Oh, heavens!" Toffee cried. "They took too much. They're disappearing entirely!" She buried her face against Marc's shoulder. "I can't look!"

Marc and Mr. Culpepper stared at the spectacle with open-mouthed amazement.

It was a long time before Toffee found the courage to turn away from Marc's shoulder. When she did, her eyes moved apprehensively toward the door, and then she made a little whimpering sound. Two forlorn little piles of clothing lay there, one on either side of the doorway.

"Ohhh, Lord," Toffee breathed. "They're gone ... completely gone. There's nothing left of them, not even a whisper."

"'Fraid you're right," Marc said. "Fixage fixed 'em."

Mr. Culpepper had been greatly sobered by the disappearance of the Harpers. "I had no idea," he muttered woodenly. "No idea at all."

"I feel sorry," Toffee said. "I can't help it. They were so proud and so elegant ... even if they were just a couple of rats."

"_Rats indeed!_"

Toffee started as though slapped in the nether regions with a cactus. The voice had been nothing more than a tiny whine, a mere vibration, but it had seemed to come from the heap of clothing that had been Agatha's. Toffee streaked across the room and knelt beside the crumpled garments. They seemed furiously agitated.

With deft fingers Toffee dug inside the clothing. First she uncovered a tiny, wrinkled hand, then an arm and finally an entire baby. The infant was very red of face and its small features were screwed up into an expression of extreme annoyance. Its button eyes blazed malevolently as it gazed at Toffee. It gritted its tiny teeth.

"Witch!" it hissed. "Oh, the things I would call you if I weren't a lady."

"Agatha!" Toffee cried. She lowered the infant back onto the pile of clothing and turned to the tangle of male garments on the other side of the door.

* * * * *

A brief search through a coat, a shirt and an undershirt uncovered Chadwick, also in an acute state of infancy. When he looked up and saw Toffee staring down at him he blushed furiously.

"Give me my trousers!" the baby demanded hotly. "Stop staring at me and give me my trousers!"

"Well, for heaven sake!" Toffee exclaimed.

She placed the depleted Harpers side by side on the lounge, and Marc and Mr. Culpepper moved to her side. As babies, the erstwhile thieves were markedly unbeautiful, and Toffee musingly remarked as much. At this the infant Agatha surprisingly forgot herself and poured out a string of oaths such as would have done credit to a stevedore on a hot day. Chadwick continued to blush.

"What are we going to do with them?" Toffee asked. "We can't turn them over to the police like this."

"Certainly not," Marc agreed. "And we can't keep them around. If my wife should suddenly come home and find me with a couple of babies...." He shuddered at the thought. "We'll have to restore them." He turned to Mr. Culpepper. "We can do that, can't we?"

"Yes!" Toffee cried. "We could bring them back to what they were before their faces were changed, couldn't we? That would solve everything."

This suggestion provoked a discordant howl from the infant Harpers.

"I don't know," the little scientist mused. "It could be done all right, but it would have to be done very carefully. We'd have to give them spirits in exact amounts. A little too much one way or another...." He stroked the tip of his nose with a slender finger. "Figuring on the basis of the amounts that you and Mr. Pillsworth consumed to restore yourselves, I could probably...." He retreated to the chair behind Marc's desk, tilted his head back and closed his eyes. "Yes, yes," he murmured dreamily.

"Will you just listen!" Agatha piped. "They're going to work us out a whiskey formula."

"I don't care what they work out," Chadwick replied, rolling unhappily over onto his fat little stomach. "I want some clothes. I'm cold and embarrassed."

"See if you can find something for them to wear," Marc said, turning to Toffee. "Try the model's dressing rooms in the photographer's studio; there may be something there." He glanced briefly at Toffee's faintly obscured figure. "And while you're about it," he added, "you might pick up something for yourself."

Toffee nodded and left the room. When she returned she was resplendent in a shimmering ice-blue evening gown that had a very conservative neckline ... provided a girl's neck, by some freak of nature, commenced somewhere in the region of her midriff. The glistening material clung tightly to her body, highlighting its more provocative features. When she walked she shimmered with a loveliness that seemed almost unreal.

In her hand she was carrying two brief lengths of black velvet. These she twined haphazardly around the rather brief figures of Agatha and Chadwick.

"How's that little wretch coming with our formula?" Agatha asked.

"Yes," Chadwick put in, "I could do with a spot or two very nicely just now."

Toffee glanced at Mr. Culpepper who, for all the world, seemed merely to be enjoying a sound sleep. His facial muscles twitched occasionally, though, giving testimony to the experimental processes that were being accomplished inside.

"Keep your diapers on," Toffee said. "He's doing what he can."

"Oh, well," Chadwick sighed. "I suppose there's really no hurry. They'll only turn us over to the police when we're restored."

"I don't care," Agatha said, eyeing Toffee's new loveliness with envy. "I'd rather rot in jail than be left to go on groveling around like this."

* * * * *

There was a sudden snort from Mr. Culpepper as his head snapped forward, and his eyes opened. "I have it," he announced composedly. "As I have it figured, ten jiggers of strong whiskey should restore them to what they were six months ago." He turned to Marc. "Do you have any liquor handy?"

Marc shook his head. "We'll have to go out for it."

"Very well," Mr. Culpepper said. "I'll go."

"No. We'll all have to go," Marc said. "We can't risk staying here. The cleaning ladies will be around this way soon. If they saw this ..." he indicated the babies and Toffee, "... there would be a scandal that would make Hollywood furious with envy."

Leaving the building, the Pillsworth party was one to startle and confound, a woman in a revealing evening gown carrying two velvet-swathed babies and accompanied by two extremely uneasy looking gentlemen, was a sight to give pause to even the most careless-minded citizen. Indeed, several citizens not only paused but stopped cold in their tracks as they saw the strange group moving toward them. With grave dignity, though, glancing neither to the right nor to the left, the ill-matched fivesome proceeded to the end of the block, waited in heavy silence for a change of traffic signals, crossed the street and disappeared through the doors of a retail liquor store. There they were greeted by a large, befuddled looking merchant.

The merchant surveyed his approaching customers with silent disbelief. Then he seemed to shake himself from an absorbing dream.

"This is a liquor store," he said dully.

"Yes, we know," Toffee said politely. "That's why we've come."

"I just thought I'd mention it," the merchant said unhappily, clearing his throat. He glanced out the window and closed his eyes a minute. Then he turned back to the group before the counter and seemed to be surprised all over again.

"Since you're really here," he said, "what can I do for you?"

"We'd like a bottle of strong whiskey," Toffee said. She turned questioningly to Mr. Culpepper who nodded back to her approvingly. "The strongest you have."

"Two bottles!" a tiny voice suddenly piped from the depths of one of the velvet bundles. Chadwick's small head bobbed into sight. "Make it two! And make it snappy!"

Agatha's head was only a moment behind Chadwick's in making its appearance, "Sot!" she accused. "Greedy little pig!"

"You be still," Chadwick rejoined. "What if I do get a little drunk tonight? Who ever had a better reason? Just being married to you would be enough, I should think! I've got it coming to me."

"You've got a lot coming to you," Agatha shrilled. "And someday you're going to get it. If it hadn't been for you starting that fight up there...."

"Please," the infant Chadwick said, looking pained. "Try to restrain your shrewish tendencies just this once, won't you?" He turned to the liquor merchant with a bland smile. "Two bottles, if you please, friend."

"Yes," Toffee put in quickly, by way of ending the discussion. "Two bottles, if you please."

"Perhaps it's just as well," Agatha drawled. "I wouldn't drink from the same bottle with that little lush, anyway."

* * * * *

The merchant made a brief, strangling noise as he tore his eyes away from Agatha and Chadwick and backed into a shelf, upsetting several bottles onto the floor. "I shouldn't of nipped the stock in the back room," he muttered to himself. "Me old lady warned me this would happen. She said it would start just this way." He turned his back on Toffee and the infants, grasped the edge of the shelf and rested his head on the backs of his hands. A deep shudder ran the full length of his body. It was some time before he began to recover even a little bit.

Finally, without turning around, he managed to say, "What kind of whiskey did you want, lady?"

Toffee looked at Agatha and Chadwick questioningly.

"What kind have you got?" Agatha called out.

The merchant shuddered again. "I don't know," he whimpered. "I don't know nuthin' right now. Maybe this is all Chanel number 5 up here on these shelves. It wouldn't surprise me none. Why don't you just look around and take what you want? I won't look. You just take it and go away. Just tip-toe out and don't slam the door. That's all I ask. The liquor is on the house."

After the selection of two large, rather vaporish-looking bottles, the little company returned to the sidewalk. The babies, however, were becoming increasingly troublesome in their eagerness to be at the liquor, which was in Marc's custody for the time being. Their ill-tempered cries, however, were almost entirely directed at Toffee. People began to stop in the streets to watch and to listen. If they could believe their ears, they were overhearing two new-born infants calling their mother names that even an adult hadn't any right to know. Shocking invective gushed from the sweet mouths of the babes in a fountainous stream. Toffee, probably for the first time in her life, was embarrassed.

"Can't we do something?" she asked her companion. "Can't we go somewhere? If this sort of thing goes on much longer I'll be picked up by a home for wayward mothers or something."

Marc glanced down the street. Then he pointed. "Over there," he said. His finger indicated a public library. "There should be quiet and privacy in there." He turned to the babies. "Now listen here, you two, either you be quiet and behave yourselves or you won't get a drop. Understand?"

Agatha and Chadwick were instantly subdued.

The library was a large, high-ceilinged place of passages and corridors. Just inside the main entrance was a large foyer-like room out of the center of which, like a giant mushroom, jutted a circular checking counter. Toffee moved quickly to the counter and rested the babies on it. An aged woman whose spinsterish face belied her gay dress turned and smiled, revealing a mouth full of charred fags.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Where are the books?" Toffee asked.

"What books?"

Toffee looked puzzled for a moment. "Big books," she said. "In stacks. I was told there were veritable walls of books in here."

"And there are," the woman said defensively. "Which books are you interested in?"

"How should I know?" Toffee asked helplessly. "I haven't read them yet."

The woman sighed. Then her eyes fell to Agatha and Chadwick lying on the counter and they lighted with the fanatical gleam of frustrated motherhood. She reached out and pulled back the velvet folds.

"My, what beaut...!" The lie died in her throat. To suggest that Agatha and Chadwick were anything but downright ugly was too great a falsehood for even this child-starved soul. "You must be ... uh ... proud," she said tonelessly. However, she was game; once she'd started she wasn't going to give up. She reached out a hand and waggled a finger over Agatha's protruding tummy.

"Kitchy-kitchy," she said unhappily.

Anger flashed in the infant's eyes. "Get your horny talons off me, you withered old wraith," she snapped. And having given warning, she parted her bubbling lips and bit the woman's finger.

* * * * *

The woman didn't cry out in surprise; she didn't make any sound at all. She simply stared hard at Toffee for a long moment, then silently pointed to a distant corridor.

"The books on abnormal child psychology are in there," she whispered. "And if I were you, honey, I'd hurry."

Toffee gathered up Agatha and Chadwick and joined Marc and Mr. Culpepper, who had been watching from a distance.

"That was fine," she scolded Agatha. "That was a splendid display."

"What did you expect?" Agatha replied haughtily. "The old hag was thumbing me like a ripe watermelon."

"I wish she'd throttled you," Toffee said annoyedly. "Lord knows you deserve it. Your mothers must have been women of great forbearance. How they kept their hands off your little throats is more than I can tell."

The little party made its way through the nearest passage and found itself in a forest of books. Shelves lined on either side stretched out toward them like great, reaching fingers. Here and there a solitary "browser" was picking his way painfully along the long rows, title by title, but on the whole the great, book-jammed room was reasonably deserted. Toffee moved along the ends of the rows, found a browserless section and disappeared inside. Marc and Mr. Culpepper followed. Together, they all retreated to the end of the section and formed a sort of huddle. Marc produced the bottles from beneath his coat.

"How are we going to measure it?" Toffee asked. "We have to give them ten jiggers exactly."

"Do I have to think of everything?" Agatha inquired scornfully. Her small hand emerged from her velvet wrappings, clutching a jigger glass. "It was lying around loose on the counter," she explained.

"As in womanhood," Toffee said philosophically, "so, too, in infancy is she a crook."

As though in solemn ritual, the bottles were silently opened and the initial portion poured.

Agatha stretched out her miniature hand. "Gimme," she said. "It's my glass. And, boy, do I need a slug!"

"Tell me, dear," Toffee said quietly, tilting the glass to Agatha's eager mouth, "whatever became of that lovely accent of yours?"

Agatha polished off the whiskey and burped. "None of your damned business," she said with truly childish simplicity.

By alternating between the two babes, a certain amount of decorum was maintained. Marc took charge of the stoking of Chadwick while Toffee continued in behalf of Agatha. Mr. Culpepper shoved a few volumes aside on one of the lower shelves and seated himself, watching with interest as the glass moved from hand to hand to bottle to baby. He looked like a spectator at a tennis game being played on a checker board. The glass shuttled from pouted lip to pouted lip until the inner infant, on both scores, had been fortified five times over. From this point on, as the whiskey poured down the tiny throats, a corresponding amount of exuberance arose via the same channel. Agatha, made congenial by the liquor, began to while away the time between drinks by lifting her childish voice in song.

"Becky lived in a Turkish harem," she chortled. "She had towels but she wouldn't wear 'em."

"Stop that caterwauling," Toffee commanded.

Agatha perversely increased her volume. "Becky looked like Theda Barer," she shrieked. "Theda was bare but Becky was barer!"

* * * * *

Suddenly a sharp, gasping sound echoed around the little group, seeming to come from no place in particular; the bookshelves themselves appeared to be making little twittering sounds of surprise. The Pillsworth party froze as it was. Eyes moved furtively in unturning heads. It was Toffee who discovered the cause of the interruption.

Several books had been removed from one of the upper shelves, leaving a sort of peep hole into the next section. In this opening had appeared the forbidding face of the spinsterish librarian. It bore the dismayed expression of a maiden lady who had inadvertently stumbled into a YMCA swimming pool.

"Heavens!" the woman gasped. "Giving liquor to _babies_! No wonder they're retarded!"

Toffee, recognizing the situation for what it was, displayed what she believed was great presence of mind in grabbing the tell-tale bottle from the shelf and lifting it to her own lips. She drank deeply of the contents, and just to lend conviction to her performance as a ravening drunkard, staggered against the bookshelves, rolling her eyes loosely in their sockets.

"Oh, dear," Mr. Culpepper put in from the perch on the shelf. "If I were you, I don't think I'd...."

A little moan issued from the colorless face in the bookshelf. "Oooo, what depravity!" it exclaimed. "And teaching the babies to drink, too!"

"Nonsense," Toffee said, addressing the face openly. "We're drinking this ourselves. We're just a bunch of roaring sots. We're too stingy to give any to the babies."

"I saw you," the face insisted. "You were forcing the filthy stuff on those infants. You ought to be reported."

Toffee turned to Marc. "We weren't either, were we?" she asked. "We never give these babies any liquor, do we?"

"Certainly not," Marc said indignantly. "We were only fighting them off, trying to keep them from taking it away from us. We love the stuff too much to waste it on them."

In demonstration, he grabbed the bottle that had been Chadwick's and pressed it eagerly to his mouth, a fanatical gleam in his eye.

"Oh, really," Mr. Culpepper cried. "I really don't think...."

"You see," Toffee said to the face. "Can't leave the stuff alone. Those babies haven't got a look-in as far as liquor is concerned. We wouldn't give them a drop if they were dying of thirst."

Doubt came into the face as Marc withdrew the bottle from his lips with a loud smacking noise and grandly wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The librarian was beginning to look more or less convinced. Slowly, the face started to move away.

"Becky's boy friend came and found her," Agatha suddenly shrilled in a voice that was definitely dewy. "But her towels were not...."

The voice suddenly became softly muffled, as though by velvet.

The face darted back into the opening between the books. "What was that?" it asked.

"Me," Toffee said. "I like music with my liquor."

The face was some reassured. "Well, you'll have to stop it," it snapped. "You'll have to stop almost everything you're doing, in fact, if you expect to remain here. Drinking is not allowed...."

A loud, rumbling burp issued from the velvet bundle in Toffee's arms.

"Oh!" the face exclaimed, and suddenly disappeared. There was the sound of quick tapping footsteps on the other side of the shelf.

* * * * *

When the footsteps had died away Toffee and Marc, with renewed vigor, returned to their labors with the bottles and the babies.

"We'll have to hurry," Marc said. "That old hag had a look about her that definitely meant trouble if you ask me."

"I agree," Toffee said. She glanced down at Agatha. "And you didn't help matters any. You displayed your customary perverseness, I noticed."

The baby cocked an insolent eye at her. "You acted with rare intelligence, yourself," she said. "In my opinion you handled the situation like a jerk. I only shudder that all these strangers are laboring under the degrading notion that you are my mother."

The liquor flowed with increasing velocity. The eighth jigger had been administered when the footsteps sounded in the doorway beyond the book shelves. They entered the room and hurried forward as though they knew just where they were going.

"In there!" came the voice of the aging librarian. "They're in section five, throwing a regular wild party! They're drinking liquor and singing dirty songs and ... and ... contributing to the delinquency of babies! They're carrying on 'till you wouldn't believe it!"

"My!" a voice said, not untinged with pleased expectancy. "Sounds like the time we raided that house over on the other side...."

"Shut up," another voice said. "No matter what's goin' on behind them books, this is different. And don't you forget it!"

The footsteps drew closer and swiftly rounded the end of the section. The members of the Pillsworth party looked up in unison and saw two large, blue-clad policemen running toward them.

Toffee fairly threw Agatha into the arms of Mr. Culpepper. "Here!" she said. "I'll hold them off. You see that she gets the other two shots!" She sounded like the little Dutch boy about to cram his pinky into that dyke over in Holland. Agatha landed in Mr. Culpepper's lap with a thud and a burp.

Thus relieved of her besotted burden Toffee raced quickly to a movable ladder stretched up against the long shelves. Reaching it, she started upward, two rungs at a time.

The ladder was the sort that rested on rollers at either end and could easily be shuttled from one location to another with a good deal of facility. Once aloft Toffee lost no time in using the contrivance to its utmost capacity. Rollers whirred and Toffee and the ladder sped forward to the attack, toward a section that was notable for the number of truly weighty volumes it housed. Toffee seized up the first of these volumes and paused momentarily to read its title.

"War and Peace," she read. "That ought to put them to sleep."

Never was literature so forced upon anyone as it was on the hapless policemen in the awful moments that followed. "War and Peace," true to Toffee's expectations did indeed leave the first of the cops looking extremely drowsy as it clipped him on the chin and sent him staggering backwards against his companion. In a matter of seconds two of the city's finest were groveling pitifully on the floor, trying vainly to ward off a hail storm of books. Toffee, in selecting a lettered diet for these two besieged gentlemen showed a marked preference for the heavier works. Her victims were most impressed, in a very physical sort of way, with the works of the ancient Greeks.

The cops, apparently unwilling to perish under this literary avalanche, turned tail, and started crawling toward the outer protection of the shelves. Seeing that victory ... at least momentary victory ... was at hand, Toffee turned back to see what progress was being made with the howling Harpers. Everything at the end of the section was oddly serene.

* * * * *

Agatha had been set aside on one of the shelves and apparently the last of the ten libations was being given to Chadwick. While Toffee was watching this picture of rather distorted domestic contentment, one of the cops timidly extended his head around the lower corner of one of the shelves.

"Lord," he commented to his companion, "they're choking whiskey down them young'uns like it was a matter of life and death. What do you suppose they wanna do that for?"

"Maybe they get a kick out of drunk babies," the other returned morosely. "Maybe hooched-up babies are a barrel of fun. How should I know?"

"Looks more like they're tryin' to kill 'em," said the peeping cop. "Infanticide is a serious charge. Attempted infanticide is just as bad. It's goin' to go hard on 'em when we get 'em outa there."

"_If_ we get 'em outa there," his companion corrected. "Me, I feel almost like just crawlin' outa here and lettin' 'em do as they please."

"Shame on you, Murphy," the first cop said. "It's our duty to protect them babies, even if they don't look very human."

"What'll we do?"

The cop surveyed the situation; Toffee was now facing away from them, watching as Chadwick was being shelved beside Agatha.

"Now's our chance," he said. "Let's rush 'em."

"I wouldn't mind rushin' that redhead," Murphy said stoutly, "if I could just get out of the readin' room. She flings a mean book."

"Let's go," the first cop whispered. "No time to jaw."

Together, the policemen rushed once more onto the scene of their recent defeat. Somehow confused, they both ran headlong for Toffee and the ladder. Apparently neither remembered the swift mobility of the ladder for, simultaneously, they lunged at it, throwing their full weight against it.

Instantly the ladder shot into motion, fully burdened with the two startled cops and a thoroughly unbalanced Toffee. At the outset Toffee toppled from her perch, hurtled downward, and caught one of the cops around the neck just in time to prevent a crashing arrival at the floor. From there on, it was just one grand, piggy-back ride for the redhead. For the cop it was a matter of an extra burden and hanging on for dear life. Books, row upon row of them, flashed by in a screaming blur. They were heading for a dead end with the speed of a bullet.

"Get off me!" Toffee's protector yelled ungallantly. "Beat it, lady! No riders!"

"Not on your life!" Toffee hollered back through clenched teeth. "For the rest of this trip you and I are sweethearts!"

At this moment the librarian appeared at the end of the book littered aisle and gazed on the scene within with open amazement. "Just look at those cops!" she exclaimed. "Carrying on just as bad as the others! You'd think this was a fun house. You boys stop that this instant!" she yelled. "I'm going to call the commissioner!"

"When you do, lady," one of the policemen hollered back, "tell him for me what he can do with his lousy job! I got a wife and kids to think of!"

Just then, the ladder, like a transcontinental express, arrived at the end of the line and discharged its protesting passengers like three jet propelled missiles. The two policemen shot out into the air, headed directly for Marc and Mr. Culpepper who had been watching the little excursion in a state of rigid immobility. Toffee, through some hitherto undiscovered law of physics, left the back of her stalwart carrier in a sweeping upward arc that landed her ungently atop the book shelves.

* * * * *

The law literally swept down on Marc and Mr. Culpepper, upending them posthaste and hurling them to the floor. From the top of the bookcase, Toffee collected her breath and gazed blandly on the scene of confusion below. She might have hurled a book or two in Marc's behalf, except that in the tangle of arms and legs, it was impossible to tell which were the property of Marc. Besides, she had just become happily aware of a window at her side, one that was easily accessible from the top of the book shelves. She threw the catch and it slid open.

Turning her attention back to the confusion on the floor, she was delighted to see that Marc and Mr. Culpepper had emerged from the "flail" and were dazedly looking about for some new, less hazardous enterprise.

"Up here!" Toffee yelled, pointing to the window. "Up the ladder!"

They reacted mechanically. They gazed dully at Toffee and the window, then started obediently toward the ladder. They were nearly to the top of the shelves when the two cops, finally weary of struggling with each other on the floor, got to their feet and observed these recent developments with considerable malice.

"Oh, no you don't!" one of them grated viciously. He lunged at the ladder and shoved it with all his might. As it shot away from his hand he let out a hysterical laugh. "There!" he yelled. "Now it's your turn to look silly!"

The ladder streaked away toward the open end of the section like a shrieking, avenging thing. Marc and Mr. Culpepper twined themselves to it and each other in a seizure of iron-bound desperation.

"Heh, heh, heh!" the cop cackled wildly, watching their terror. "That'll teach 'em to make light of the law!" He turned his attention to Toffee. "Come down off there, you little witch," he demanded.

"Come and get me, lardhead," Toffee hissed. "I'm holding out for squatter's rights."

The cop accepted her invitation. Or at least he tried. Clutching the edge of a high shelf he attempted to swing himself upward. From there on, the natural laws of gravity took matters into their own hands. The entire bookcase teetered drunkenly for a moment, swayed forward, paused, then clattered downward. Toffee's pursuer went down under a flood of literature, while Toffee sailed lightly outward and landed with ease in the outstretched arms of the other policeman. All three of the participants in this rather singular incident were starkly surprised at its outcome.

At the same moment a howling duet of horror announced the arrival of Marc and Mr. Culpepper at their dreaded destination. There was a thud and a crash as the ladder hit the end of its track and hurled its helpless cargo into the wall. A clatter, a moan and a groan marked the end of the operation.

"Now look what you've done!" Toffee howled as the cop lowered her to the floor. "You've probably killed them!"

A howl of outrage issued from the mountain of books at her side. A few slid from the top of the pile and the head of the deluged policeman jutted into view, eyes ablaze. "You haven't increased my insurance value either, sister," he said bitterly. He burrowed his way to freedom and gained his feet, staring evilly at the diminutive cause of his downfall. "I--hate--you," he said with heavy emphasis.

* * * * *

By the time Toffee and the cops arrived at the end of the section, Marc and Mr. Culpepper were just beginning to stir. Apparently their nervous systems had suffered the bulk of the damage, for they were not noticeably marked. The cops took them into hand.

"Fun's over boys!" the more unruffled of them said. "You won't go sky-larking again for a long, long time."

In the meantime, Toffee was staring back into the aisle, searching out the shelf on which she had last seen the infant Harpers. She made a little cry of surprise. The shelf was empty.

"They're gone!" she said. "They've gotten away. And after all the trouble we've gone through to bring those two crooks to justice!" A look of speculation crept into her eyes, and she turned to the nearest cop. She grabbed his arm with an urgent hand. "My babies!" she wailed dramatically. "My babies! They're gone. You've got to find them! You've got to! I'll kill myself!"

"What's that?" the cop asked mildly.

"I'll kill myself, Dumbo," Toffee said sourly. "Go get my babies. They've run away."

"I don't blame 'em. Where did they go?"

"How should I know?"

"Kill yourself, lady," the cop said tiredly. "I'm too worn out."

"Why you...!" Toffee started.

A sudden shriek from the foyer interrupted her. It was a scream with a purpose in life, it was ambitious, it was soul searing and nerve shattering.

In a body, the cops and the apprehended fugitives ran to the doorway. Then they stopped, completely stunned by the spectacle before them.

Two lank and very mature figures, clothed only to the essential degree in brief scraps of black velvet, were crawling serenely across the foyer floor. The ancient librarian, holding onto her counter to keep from slipping to the floor, was screaming her dreadful head off. The Harpers, apparently in the midst of escape, had suddenly and quite unbeknownst to themselves been restored to adulthood. At each movement the velvet wrappings were slipping a bit further afield. A number of people, some with books in their hands, were standing about the room in attitudes of fascinated bewilderment.