cheap sensationalism." The editor picked up the memo with Ewing's address. "All things considered," he said, "I think you'd better get this interview for me."

Joey stared at Nugent for an insolent second. Then, he took the memo. He checked the address, jammed the paper into his pocket, and moved quickly to the door. Hand on the knob, he paused.

"Oh, Nugent," he called, "if you can't see the story I bring back, just remember: it's in another dimension."

He slammed the door on Nugent's anger.

Early evening traffic was heavy as he pulled into the quiet, old-fashioned street where Ewing lived.

Sober brownstone houses, their front steps rising steeply to stain-glass paneled doors; heavily curtained bay windows; weather-stained and rotting gingerbread; an atmosphere of reluctant decay and genteel senescence. Ewing's house was like a dozen others in the same block.

Joey was not a man given to hunches, and yet, as he climbed out of his car and stood staring up at the silent house, he could not repress a shiver of apprehension.

He looked up the street. Nothing marred the quiet. A middle-aged woman hurried home with her armload of groceries. A man paraded an ancient dog on a leash.

Slowly, Joey climbed the steps. His apprehension was no more than the resentment he felt for the assignment. He yanked the old-fashioned bell and listened for its echoes dying deep in the house.

He fidgeted impatiently. Perhaps old Ewing wasn't at home. Or, maybe he was so eccentric he no longer answered the bell. Joey jerked it again.

On the traffic-noisy boulevard a block away, he heard a raw squealing of brakes.

Joey sighed and turned away. He'd wasted an hour. He started down the steps. And the door opened.

Jason Ewing was very old. His incredibly blue eyes seemed alien in the yellow parchment face. His clothing, his manner, even his speech were archaic.

As Joey shook the bony hand, Ewing was apologizing for the delay.

"I was in my dark-room," he said—the voice strangely resonant to come from so frail a chest—"and I had to get the developer off my hands."

Joey nodded and stepped inside. The atmosphere of the house was a curious mixture of chemical and decay. There was a layer of dust on the bric-a-brac, and as Joey followed the stooped figure from the entry-hall into the living-room, he saw Ewing as a kind of insubstantial ghost, moving through the deserted rooms so carefully that the dust was not disturbed.

Ewing gestured to a chair which looked prim and uncomfortable in its yellowed antimacassars. "Sit down, please, Mr. Barrett." He switched on an ornate table lamp. "It's most kind of you to be interested in my work."

Joey gave him the automatic smile. The room was a combination studio and parlor. A bulky, antique camera lorded it over the conventional furnishings. Its unblinking eye regarded Joey coldly.

There was a fireplace, with massive brass andirons cast to resemble griffon-heads; purple draperies at the window were faded by sun and time; the heavy furniture was defiantly shabby; even the antique photograph album with its plush cover and gold-plated clasp and lock was right for the room. This was Jason Ewing's world and Joey felt himself to be an alien.

Ewing hovered nervously, white fingers clenching and unclenching, reaching out, now and then, to touch the album on the dusty table-top. "I know you are a busy man, Mr. Barrett," he said, "so I'll come at once to the point."

Joey relaxed as much as he could in the old chair. "I should tell you first, Mr. Ewing, that I'm not a writer. I'm a photographer. My editor thought maybe you and me would talk the same language."

Ewing bobbed his head up and down. "Excellent. Excellent." He pulled up a small chair. "Believe me, Mr. Barrett, I hesitated a very long while before I decided to make my discovery public."

Joey disguised a grin. "What finally decided you?"

Ewing closed his eyes. "I'm not well.