Behind me I could hear some sliding. In the rear-view side mirror, I saw that I was depositing furniture at intervals on the street.

Then there was a big crash as a grand piano went out!

After that there was a sort of banging behind me on the pavement as I roared along. I didn't know what it was. But nothing must deter me from stopping Madison. I might get another phone call or even a couple of snakes!

The truck was pretty hard to drive, being fifty feet or more long and being pretty high. But after many a narrow escape I made it within a block of 42 Mess Street. The street was too narrow to admit the moving van so I parked it. I found what had been banging behind me was the tailgate hitting the pavement. The grand piano must have busted its hinges. I got it closed. I walked the rest of the way.

The old loft was a beehive. Reporters were rushing about. Typewriters and telex machines were roaring. Outgoing mailbags full of releases to every paper in the world were being passed like fire-bucket lines through the window to sail down into waiting trucks.

A huge new banner stretched across the room:

THINK COVERAGE AT ANY COST!

Another said:

Front Page or You're Out!

Madison was in the end office, so surrounded with reporters taking dictation I couldn't get near him.

Close to hand a reporter was bellowing into a telephone, "I don't want page two. I want page one! Look, Mr. Vitriahl, you may be managing editor of the St. Petersburg Grimes today, but you won't even be a copy boy on the Smearwater Shun, the dinkiest paper in Florida, tomorrow! You cooperate, you (bleepard), or you-know-who will be onto your board of directors to find a new God (bleeped) managing editor before dawn.... That's better. Headlines it is." He hung up.

The reporter was muttering over a dogeared notebook. He put in another call. "Los Angeles Grimes? Give me J. Blithering Bonkers, please.... Hello, Bonkers. This is Ted Tramp of the you-know-who organization. You didn't give us front page yesterday.... All right, all right. So your God (bleeped) managing editor's wife is head of the National Association of Mental Stealth. Don't cry on... All right. I agree that her embezzling the NAMS funds and running off with the head psychiatrist was news. But God (bleep) it, Bonkers, you got to assert your control over that board! Why the hell do you suppose you-know-who got you on as chairman of the Grimes-Smearer Corporation, anyway?... Ah, that's better. ... That's better, Bonkers.... Well, (bleep), you don't have to shoot the (bleepard). Just make him put the Whiz Kid on the front page!"

The reporter hung up and got out some dirty tissue and scrubbed vigorously at his ear. "I can't stand slobbering!" He saw me. "Who the hell are you? You don't look dirty enough to be a reporter. You some kind of a spy?"

"Precisely," I said. "Tell Madison, Smith has got to see him."

"I dunno," he said, glancing at the mob around Madison in his office.

"Smith from you-know-who," I said.

"Jesus," said the reporter. He grabbed the handle of a fire-engine siren close to hand and began to turn it briskly. The reporters all rushed out looking for the fire.

I walked in.

Madison looked at me with aplomb. "Oh, hello, Mr. Smith. Fifteen point quote Madison Triumphs unquote! We've seized the initiative! And I'll bet you're here bearing rave notices from Bury!"

"I'm here bearing an axe, Madison," I said sternly. "You have trod upon sacred toes. You forgot that Octopus isn't your client so save your ruin for the Whiz Kid!"

"Ruin? Madison can't get it on the pica stick! What are you talking about, Smith? Mr. Bury gave me specific and direct orders to make the Whiz Kid's name a household word and to make him immortal!"

"He didn't give you any orders to PR Swindle and Crouch!" I said. "You link them up in the news with Boggle, Gouge and Hound and Bury will have your telephone disconnected!"

That got to him. "Oh," he said, slumping. "It is so difficult to work with nonprofessionals. You don't really understand PR."

"I understand it very well," I said. "It's Confidence, Coverage and Controversy. And the Coverage in my penthouse today cost $18,932.27. And you and I are going to have an awful lot of Controversy if you don't get Swindle and Crouch out of it and if you think Octopus needs your PR. You mend your ways or you'll shatter my Confidence!"

"It was front page!" he wailed. "I have had the front page day after day! PR is like marksmanship! It's the number of times you can hit the front page! And Madison has been riddling it!"

"It and everything else!" I said. "Now settle down. Get on course and do what you're supposed to do! You repair this damage to Swindle and Crouch and Octopus! No more wild bullets slaughtering innocent bystanders! Get rid of these suits! They're too close to home."

"But PR should have a little bit of truth in it," said Madison. "It sort of spices it up!"

"I'm adamant," I said.

Suddenly he smiled. "Great! Absolutely great! I got it. I can see it now! Suits are only good for one day of front page. They usually sag to page two and right on down the drain. It doesn't change my general program."

He walked up and down his office, sort of dancing. I watched him suspiciously. He was far too happy for a man who has just been chewed up Apparatus style!

He stopped. His honest, earnest face grew sincere. He took my hand. He shook it. "Thank you for a great idea, Mr. Smith. You may not be a professional but I can assure you that a fresh viewpoint is like warm air to the overworked wits."

He rushed out. "STAFF! STAFF! Everybody gather round. I've just had a GREAT idea!"

I left. A little of Madison is an awful lot.

I had my own problems.

I was broke.

I myself had just had a marvelous idea. I was anxious to get going with it.

I looked at my watch. I had ample time if I hurried.

At the corner of Mess Street, I looked about.

The moving van was gone!

Some (bleepard) had stolen my transportation!

Now I would have to hurry. It was far too close to five o'clock.

With an anxious eye, I looked about. There was a stoplight near to hand. An idea! I raced across the street against the light, dodging traffic. I got alongside the northbound lane.

The light went red. The traffic stopped. I raced down the line of waiting cars.

I saw an old lady behind the wheel of a rattletrap Ford. I grabbed the door handle, opened it and leaped in.

I snapped my derringer out of my sleeve and shoved it into her side.

She gasped!

"This is a pickup!" I grated. "Drive at once to Rockecenter Plaza or get raped!"

She let out a thin scream.

"Drive!" I said.

The light changed. Trailing a thin scream behind us we rushed north.

I looked at my watch. I still had time. But this woman was driving all over the road.

"Drive straight!" I ordered her.

"I can't see without my glasses!" she screeched. "Get my glasses out of the glove compartment!"

"Drive!" I ordered her with a jab of the derringer.

Erratically, following my directions, we got onto and raced northward on the Avenue of the Americas. We were within four blocks of Rockecenter Plaza but the streets were all torn up. It was like threading a needle.

We swerved and almost went into a construction ditch!

She jammed on her brakes! I almost went through the windscreen!

"I can't see without my glasses!" she screamed. "They're in the glove compartment!"

All right! Gods! Anything to keep from being wrecked. I opened it.

POW-SWISH!

I got a full blast of Mace straight in the face!

I screamed! I was stone blind!

She must have opened the passenger-side door. Sharp-heeled shoes crashed into my side.

Out I went on the pavement! Right in the gutter!