into the jelly. This surprised me a little because this whole mass of de-sudsed washing compound mixture had started out with a pretty good shot of lye in it.

So my notes grew, but my useful information didn't. By midnight Sunday, it appeared that my jelly invention had only one important talent: The ability to drink endlessly anything containing water. And only the water was used, it seemed. Dissolved solids were cast aside in the form of variously colored dusts.

By now, the goop had outgrown the pail and was two-thirds up in the laundry tub. A slow drip from the faucet kept the surface of my monster in a constant state of frenzy, like feeding a rumpot beer by the thimbleful.

It was fascinating to watch the little curleycues of jelly flip up after each drop, reaching for more, and then falling back with a cranky little lash.

t two o'clock this morning, I began to get a little sense in me. Or maybe it was just the fear finally catching up again.

There was danger here.

I was too fuzzy to know exactly what the danger was, but I began to develop a husky hate for the whole project.

"Kill it!" came into my mind. "Get rid of it, Charlie!"

Lottie's scream shrilled back into my ears, and this command became very important to me. I became angry.

"Want a drink, do you?" I shouted out loud. I put on the tea kettle and when it was to full steam, I took it back to the tub. "I'll give you a drink with a kick in it!"

What happened, I would like to forget. Ten times as fast as it had climbed up the cold water spout, it ran up the boiling water stream, into the tea kettle, blew off the lid and swarmed over my hand with a scalding-dry slither that made me drop the kettle into the tub and scream with pain.

The jelly steamed and stuck to my flesh long enough to sear it half to the bone. Then it slopped back with the rest and left me grabbing my wrist and tearing at the flesh with my finger-nails to stop the pain.

Then I got insane mad. I got my big blowtorch I use for peeling paint, and I lit it and pumped it up as high as it would go and aimed it down into that tub.

Not too much happened. The jelly shrank away from the roaring blast, but it didn't climb over the edge of the tub. It shrank some more and I poured the flame on.

It didn't burn. It just got to be less and less, and what was left began to get cloudy. And when I hit the bottom of the tub, the last glob moved around pretty active, trying to escape the heat, but I got it. Every damned last shred of it, and I was laughing and crying when I dropped the torch into the tub. I had been holding it with my scalded hand and I guess I fainted.

I wasn't out long. I got up and dressed my hand with lard, and it felt pretty good. Took a couple of aspirins and sat down at Lottie's typewriter. I know I won't sleep until I get this off my mind in about the way it happened, because I probably won't believe all of it myself when I get back to normal.

I just now went out and fished the blowtorch out of the laundry tub. All there was left in the bottom of the tub was maybe half a pound of singed-looking—soap flakes?

here, I've finished writing this all down. But I'm still not sleepy. I'm not worried about patching things up with Lottie. She's the most wonderful, understanding wife a guy ever had.

My hand feels real good now. I got it wrapped in lard and gauze, and I could drive the truck if I wanted to.

I'm not afraid of getting fired or bawled out for not coming to work on time this morning.

No, the reason I haven't turned a wheel on my beer truck today is something else.

Friday night, when Lottie