Returning to the main room he picked up the receiver of the phone and dialed the twenty-four-hour-a-day dictionary service.

"What's a crumble?" he asked, when the robot monitor answered.

"A crumbling substance," the computer fed to the monitor. "In other words fine debris. A small crumb or particle. Introduced into English 1577."

"Other languages?" Joe asked.

"Middle English kremelen. Old English gecrymian. Middle High Gothic—"

"What about non-Terran languages?"

"On Betelgeuse seven in the Urdian tongue it means a small opening of a temporary nature: a wedge which—"

"That's not it," Joe said.

"On Rigel two it means a small life-form which scuttles—"

"Not that either," Joe said.

"On Sirius five, in the Plabkian tongue ‘crumble' is a monetary unit."

"That's it," Joe said. "Now tell me how much in Earth money thirty-five thousand crumbles represents."

The dictionary robot said, "I am sorry, sir, but you will have to consult the banking service for that answer. Please look in your phone book for the number." It clicked off; the screen died away.

He looked up the number and dialed the banking service. "We are closed for the night," the banking-service robot monitor informed him.

"All over the world?" Joe said in amazement.

"Everywhere."

"How long do I have to wait?"

"Four hours."

"My life, my entire future—" But he was talking into a dead phone. The banking-service system had abolished the contact.

What I'll do, he decided, is lie down and sleep for four hours. It was now seven o'clock; he could set the alarm for eleven.

A pressing of the proper button brought the bed sliding out from the wall, virtually to fill the room; it had been his living room and now it was his bedroom. Four hours, he said to himself as he set the mechanism of the bed's clock. He lay down, made himself comfortable—as much so as the inadequate bed permitted—and groped for the toggle switch that induced immediately and powerfully the most profound sleep state possible.