Page:Weird Tales Volume 36 Number 08 (1942-11).djvu/38

Rh concrete symbolisms and personifications of a cartoon if interpreted naively by a child, but had been unable to get his idea across.

The conductor growled out the name of a downtown street, and once again he lost himself in the crowd, finding relief in the never-ceasing movement, the brushing of shoulders against his own.

UT as the time-clock emitted its delayed musical bong! and he turned to stick his card in the rack, the girl at the desk looked up and remarked, "Aren’t you going to punch in for your dog, too?”

"My dog?”

"Well, it was there just a second ago. Came in right behind you, looking as if it owned you—I mean you owned it.” She giggled briefly through her nose. "One of Mrs. Montmorency’s mastiffs escaped from the chauffeur and wandering around the store, I presume.”

He continued to stare at her blankly. "A joke,” she explained patiently, and returned to her work.

"I’ve got to get a grip on myself,” he found himself muttering tritely as the elevator lowered him noiselessly to the basement.

"I’ve got to get a grip on myself,” he kept repeating as he hurried to the locker room, left his coat and lunch, gave his hair a quick careful brushing, hurried again through the still-empty aisles, and slipped in behind the socks-and-handkerchiefs counter. "It’s just nerves. I’m not crazy. But I got to get a grip on myself.”

"What do you mean, talking to yourself and not noticing anybody? Don’t you know that’s the first symptom of insanity?”

Gertrude Rees had stopped on her way over to neckties. Light brown hair, faultlessly waved after the fashion of department-store salesgirls, framed a serious, not-too-pretty face.

"Just jittery, I guess,” he murmured.

"Sorry.” What else could you say? Even to Gertrude?

"I guess all of us get that way sometimes these days, pal,” she answered. Her hand slipped across the counter to squeeze his for a moment. "Buck up.”

But even as he watched her walk away, his hands automatically arranging display boxes, the new question was furiously hammering in his brain. What else could you say? What words could you use to explain it? Above all, to whom could you tell it? A dozen names printed themselves in his mind and were as quickly discarded.

One remained. Tom Goodsell. Tom was a screwball with a lot of common sense. Liked to talk about queer things. He would tell Tom. Tonight, after the fire warden’s class.

Shoppers were already filtering down into the basement. "He wears size eleven, madam? Yes, we have some new patterns in. These are silk and lisle.” But their ever-increasing numbers gave him no sense of security. Crowding the aisles, they became shapes behind which something might hide. He was continually peering past them. A little child who wandered behind the counter and pushed at his knee, gave him a sudden fright.

Lunch came early for him. He arrived at the locker room in time to catch hold of Gertrude Rees as she retreated uncertainly from the dark doorway.

"Dog,” she gasped. "Huge one. Gave me an awful start. Talk about jitters! Wonder where he ever came from? Watch out. He looked nasty.”

But David, impelled by sudden recklessness born of fear and shock, was already inside and switching on the light.

"No dog in sight,” he told her. His face was whiter than hers.

"You’re crazy. It must be there.” Her face, gingerly poked through the doorway, lengthened in surprise. "But I tell you