"The ale!" he screamed. "The ale!"

He skidded to a halt in front of the three toiling up the path.

"What of the ale?" panted Mr. O'Toole. "Do you mean to confess to me that you have been the sampling of it?"

"It has gone sour," wailed the little goblin. "The whole bewitched mess of it is sour."

"But ale can't go sour," protested Maxwell, grasping some sense of the tragedy that had taken place.

Mr. O'Toole bounced upon the path in devastating anger. His face turned from brown to red to purple. His breath came gushing out in wheezing gasps.

"It can, bedamned," he shouted, "with a spell of wizardry!"

He turned around and started rapidly down the path, trailed by the little goblin.

"Leave me at them filthy trolls!" shouted Mr. O'Toole. "Leave me wrap my paws around their guzzles. I will dig them out with these two hands and hang them in the sun to dry. I will skin them all entire. I will teach them lessons they never will unlearn..."

His bellowing dwindled with distance to unintelligible rumbling as he scrambled swiftly down the path, heading for the bridge beneath which the trolls hung out.

The two humans stood watching, filled with admiration and wonder at such ponderous, towering wrath.

"Well," said Churchill, "there goes our chance at sweet October ale."

Chapter 4

The clock in Music Hall began striking the hour of six as Maxwell reached the outskirts of the campus, riding from the airport on one of the slower, outer belts of the roadway. Churchill had taken another roadway and Maxwell had been glad of that. Not only that he felt a faint distaste for the man, but from the wish to be alone. He wanted to ride slowly, with the windshield down, in silence, without the need of conversation, to soak up the sight and feel of those few square miles of buildings and of malls-coming home again to the one place that he loved.