you."

His hand rang on Murray's arm as he grasped it to lead the way. The hall was portentously dark, and Ben pulled him straight across it to the door marked "Fire Exit."

"Elevator?" queried Murray.

"No go. No power."

"Oh, Lord, forty-eight stories to walk."

"You'll get used to it." They were clanking to the landing of the floor below and Ben, without the slightest compunction, pushed boldly into the door of the apartment there. The lock showed signs of being forced. "Oh, I broke it in," Ben answered Murray's unspoken query. "Thought I might be able to help, but it was no use. That fat woman lives here—you know, the one that used to sniff at us in the elevator when we went on a bender."

Any qualms Murray felt about looking on the naked face of death were perfunctorily laid to rest as the scientist led him into the room occupied by the late lady of the elevator. She lay solidly in her bed amidst the meretricious gorgeousness she had affected in life, the weight of her body sagging the bed grotesquely toward its center. Instead of the clean-running mechanical devices which marked the appearance of the two friends, she was nothing but lumps and bumps, a bulging, ugly cast-iron statue, distending the cheap "silk" nightdress.

"See?" said Ben, calmly. "The transmutation wasn't complete. Prob'ly didn't get it as strong as we did. Look, the window's closed. This will be a warning to people who are afraid to sleep in a draft. Come along."

Murray lingered. "Isn't there anything ... we can do?" He felt uncomfortably responsible.

"Not a thing," said Ben, cheerfully. "All she's good for is to stand in the park and look at. Come along. We've got a lot of stairs to go down ... we're too noisy; need a good bath in non-rusting oil."

They reached the street level after an æon of stairs, Ben leading the way to the corner drug store. All about them was a complete silence; fleecy white clouds sailed across the little ribbon of blue visible at the top of the canyon of the New York city street.

"Lucky it's a nice day," said Ben, boldly stepping into the drug store, the door of which stood open. "We'll have to figure out this rainy weather thing. It's going to present a problem."

Within, the drug store presented the same phenomena of arrested development as the apartment of the fat lady at the forty-seventh story. A cast-iron statue of a soda-clerk leaned on the fountain in an attitude of studied negligence, its lips parted as though addressing some words to the equally metallic figure of a girl which faced him across the counter. On her steely features was a film of power, and the caked and curling remains of her lip stick showed she had been there for some time.

"By the way," Murray asked, "have you any idea what day it is, and how long we were—under the influence? It couldn't have happened overnight."

"Why not?" came Ben's voice from the rear of the store. "Say, old dear, rummage around some of those drawers for rubber gloves, will you? I'd hate to run into high voltage with this outfit."

"Ah, here they are," came from Ben finally. "Well, let's go."

"What's the next step?" They were outside.

"Rubber shoes, I fancy," said Ben, as his feet skidded on the pavement. "Let's take a taxi there and go find a shoe store."

Together they managed to slide the cast-iron taxi driver from his seat (Murray was surprised at how easily he was able to lift a weight he could not have budged in his flesh and blood days), deposited him on the curb and climbed in. The key was fortunately in the switch.

As they swung around the corner into Madison Avenue, Lee gave an exclamation. A scene of ruin and desolation met their eyes. Two or three street cars had telescoped and an auto or so had piled into the wreckage. All about were the iron forms of the passengers in these conveyances, frozen in the various attitudes they had assumed at the moment of the change, and from one or two of them thin streamers of metal showed where blood had flowed forth before it had been irretrievably crystallized to metal.

Murray Lee suddenly realized that an enormous amount of machinery had gone to smash everywhere when the guiding hands had been removed and the guiding brains frozen to useless metal. He gave a little shudder.

They swung round before a shoe store with grating brakes. The door was locked, but Ben, lifting his foot, calmly kicked a hole in the show window. Murray extended a restraining hand, but his friend shook it off.

"No use asking permission. If the proprietor of this place is still alive anywhere, it will be easy enough to settle up for the damage; if he isn't, we have as good a right to it as anybody."

The new toes, which appeared to be longer than those he remembered, made fitting a difficulty, and Murray split two or three shoes before he got a pair on.

"What next?" he asked. "I feel like a drink."

"No use," said Ben. "You're on the wagon for good. Alcohol would play merry hell with your metalwork. The best thing is to find out how many people we are. For all we know, we're the only ones in the world. This thing seems to have knocked out everybody along the street level. Let's try some of the taller apartment buildings and see if we can find more penthouse dwellers."

"Or maybe the others came to before us and went away," offered Murray.

"True," Ben replied. "Anyhow, look-see." He led the way to the taxi.

"Wait," said Murray. "What's that?"

Above the sound of the starting engine came the echo of heavy footsteps, muffled by shoes.

"Hey! Coo-ee! This way!" shouted Ben. The footsteps tentatively approached the corner. Murray ran forward, then stopped in amazement. The newcomer was a girl—or would have been a girl had she not been all metal and machinery like themselves. To his eyes, still working on flesh-and-blood standards, she was anything but good-looking. She was fully and formally dressed, save that she wore no hat—the high pile of tangled wire that crowned her head made this obviously impossible.

"Oh, what has happened?" she cried at them. "What can I do? I took a drink of water and it hurt."

"Everything's all right. Just a little metal transformation," said Ben. "Stick around, I'll get you some oil. You squeak." He was off down the street in a clatter, leaving Murray with the newcomer.

"Permit me to introduce myself," he offered. "I am—or was—Murray Lee. My friend, who has gone to get you some oil, is Benjamin Franklin Ruby. He thinks the big comet which hit the earth contained radioactive gas that made us all into metal. Did you live in a penthouse?"

She eyed him darkly. "Somebody told you," she said, "I'm Gloria Rutherford, and we have the top floor of the Sherry-Netherland, but all the rest were away when this happened.... Oh, pardon me, it hurts me to talk."

There came a crash from down the street, indicating that Ben was forcing another store, and in a minute he was back with a handful of bottles. With a flourish he offered one to the girl. "Only castor, but it's the best the market affords," he said. "What we need is a good garage, but there aren't many around here.... Go ahead, drink her down, it's all right," he assured the girl, who was contemplating the bottle in her hand with an expression of distaste.

Following his own recommendation, he tipped up one of the bottles and drank a deep draught, then calmly proceeded to douse himself from head to foot with the remainder.

She made a little grimace, then tried it. "Thank you," she said, setting the bottle down. "I didn't think it was possible anybody could like the stuff except in a magazine ad. Now tell me, where are all the other people and what do we do?"

"Do?" queried Ben. "Find 'em. How? Ask Mr. Foster. Anybody else in your neck of the woods?"

She shook her head. Murray noticed that the joints of her neck rattled. "Paulson—that's my maid—was the only other person in our apartment, and she