Ah, how shamefully had I neglected them in the past! And the poor, and the hungry, and the sick and destitute, Good Lord! I found myself kneeling over a suitcase, frantically pulling things out to find some article of value I could give to the needy. And once again the feeble voices of alarm called out desperately from my subconscious: "Attention! Danger! It's a trick, an ambush! Fight! Bite! Parry! Thrust! Help!" I was torn in two. I felt such a sudden surge of the categorical imperative, that I wouldn't have touched a fly. A pity, I thought, that the Hilton didn't have mice or even a few spiders. How I would have pampered the dear little things! Flies, fleas, rats, mosquitoes, bedbugs-all God's beloved, lovable creations! Meanwhile I blessed the table, the lamp, my own legs. But the vestiges of reason hadn't abandoned me altogether, so with my left hand I beat at the right, which was doing all the blessing, beat it until the pain made me writhe. Now that was encouraging! Perhaps there was hope after all! Luckily the desire to do good carried with it the wish for self-mortification. For a start, I punched myself in the mouth a couple of times; my ears rang and I saw stars. Good, excellent! When the face grew numb, I began kicking myself in the shins. Fortunately I had on heavy boots, with hard heels. After the therapeutic application of several swift kicks I felt much better-that is, much worse. Tentatively I tested the thought of how it would be to kick a certain C. A. as well. That no longer lay outside the realm of possibility. My shins ached like the blazes, and yet apparently it was thanks to the self-administered injury that I was now able to imagine the same dished out to old M. W. Ignoring the pain, I kicked on and on. Sharp objects were of use here too, and I availed myself of a fork and then some pins from an unused shirt. I was making progress, but there were setbacks; in a few minutes I was ready once again to immolate myself on the altar of some higher cause, all bubbling over with honor, virtue and noblesse oblige.