«Dive! Dive!»

I dove.

Thinking that the room might be struck by a titanic iceberg, I fell, to scuttle beneath the lion-claw-footed couch.

«Dive!» cried the old man.

«Dive?» I whispered, and looked up.

To see a submarine periscope, all polished brass, slide up to vanish in the ceiling.

Gustav Von Seyfertitz stood pretending not to notice me, the sweat-oiled leather couch, or the vanished brass machine. Very calmly, in the fashion of Conrad Veidt in Casablanca, or Erich Von

like Jack Nicklaus hits a ball? Bamm. A hand grenade!

That was the sound my Germanic friend's boots

made as he knocked them together in a salute Crrrack!

«Gustav Mannerheim Auschlitz Von Seyfertitz Baron Woldstein, at your service!» He lowered his voice. «Unterderseaboat-«

I thought he might say «Doktor.» But:

«Unterderseaboat Captain!»

I scrambled off the floor.

Another crrrack and-The periscope slid calmly down out of the

ceiling, the most beautiful Freudian cigar I had ever seen.

«No!» I gasped.

«Have I ever lied to you?» «Many times!»

«But' '-he shrugged-' 'little white ones.» He stepped to the periscope, slapped two

handles in place, slammed one eye shut, and crammed the other angrily against the view piece, turning the periscope in a slow roundabout of the room, the couch, and me.

«Fire one,» he ordered.

I almost heard the torpedo leave its tube. «Fire two!» he said.

And a second soundless and invisible bomb

motored on its way to infinity. Struck midships, I sank to the couch.

«You, you!» I said mindlessly. «It!» I pointed

at the brass machine. «This!» I touched couch. «Why?»

«Sit down,» said Von Seyfertitz.

«I am.» «Lie down.»