He raced at full speed up the stairs, his feet noiseless on the stone slabs. At a dead run, he pushed open the door leading to the ninth floor corridor. Breathing heavily, he walked to his door and stopped and listened. It was silent within. Good, Chiun was still climbing. His Oriental pride was going to get kicked.

But what if he had fallen? He was eighty years old. Suppose his twisted body lay in a heap at the base of the hotel wall?

Remo grabbed the door knob, twisted, and pushed the heavy steel door back into the room, and stepped in onto the carpet. Chiun was standing in the middle of the floor, his hazel eyes burning into Remo's dark brown eyes. "Eighty-three seconds," Chiun said. "You are even worthless for climbing stairs."

"I waited for the elevator," Remo lied, lamely.

"The truth is not in you. Even in your condition, one does not become exhausted riding the elevator."

He turned his back. There was the infernal toilet paper in his hand.

Chiun had removed a roll of toilet paper from the bathroom, and now he rolled it across the heavy rug of the hotel floor. He smoothed it down, and then re-entered the bathroom. He returned with a glass of water in his hand, and began pouring it over the paper. Twice, he went into the bathroom to refill the glass, until finally the toilet paper was soaked with water.

Remo had closed the door behind him. Chiun walked over and sat on the bed. He turned to look at Remo. "Practice," he said. Almost to himself, he added: "Animals need not practice. But then they do not eat mashed potatoes. And they do not make mistakes. When man loses instinct, he must regain it by practice."

With a sigh, Remo looked across the 15-foot length of wet toilet tissue. It was an ancient Oriental training technique adapted to the 20th Century. Run along- pieces of wet paper, without tearing the paper underfoot. Or, following Chiun's standards, without wrinkling it. It was the ancient art of Ninjutsu, credited to Japan but claimed by Chiun for Korea. Its practitioners were called invisible men, and legend had them able to vanish in a wisp of smoke or to transform themselves into animals, or to pass through stone walls.