Bodines' water and its organisms. Dan was clearly irritated by the mystery of the 
creatures' greeny-yellow excretion, and he struck off on his fingers a whole list of 
purposes it couldn't possibly have, and a whole list of purposes that it could have, but 
still didn't make any sense.
    I said: 'I don't know why you're so worried about it. You know damned well that 
you'll get to find out in the end. A few months of patient research, and you'll probably 
discover that it's making itself mid-morning coffee. The first microscopic organism to 
provide its own refreshments.'
    'Are you ever serious?' Dan asked me. 'This organism could be one of the most 
fascinating discoveries for years. I could make my name with this.'
    'I didn't think you were that kind of a scientist,' I told him. 'The next thing, 
you'll be telling me you have dreams of winning the Nobel Prize for analysing fertilizer.'
    Dan went slightly pink. 'Everybody has ambitions,' he said, evidently embarrassed.
    'I don't,' I said, bluntly. 'I used to, when I was younger. But I'll tell you 
something for nothing. Ambitions don't get you anywhere. When you have ambitions, you 
spend your whole life trying to reach some place only to find out that you didn't 
particularly want to be there anyway.'
    'Is that how a half-trained psychiatrist justifies being a plumber?' he asked me.
    I looked away. 'Maybe it's the way a fully-trained human being justifies a peaceful 
and happy life.'
    'Are you really peaceful and happy?' he wanted to know.
    'Are you really sure you want to have your name up in lights at the Smithsonian?' I 
retaliated.
    'I think you need to fall in love,' he declared, and took a long drink of beer.
    We had one more beer each, and watched a few minutes of the basketball on the 
television over the bar. Then I put a dollar on the counter for Henry and we went back 
out into the night again. I walked back as far as the mall with Dan, and we stood for a 
while on the corner, talking about the water problem. Finally, Dan said: 'Listen-I have 
to go check those samples. I'll probably call you tomorrow when I've been up to Jimmy's 
place.'
    I reached into my pocket for a cigarillo. To my annoyance, the goddamn pack wasn't 
there. I must have left it in Stanley's, or maybe up at the laboratory. I said to Dan: 
'Do you remember if I left my cigarillos on your desk?'
    'You can come up and take a look if you want to.'
    He unlocked the office doors with a pass key. Inside the building, it was gloomy and 
echoing now, and there was nobody else around. We climbed the stairs and walked along the 
landing towards the health department door.
    'Doesn't this place give "you the creeps when you work late?' I asked Dan.
    'Not as much as my apartment,' he replied. 'I have a landlady who looks through my 
keyhole to see if I have ladies in my rooms.'
    'And do you?'
    'That's a trade secret, Mason.'
    'Oh. I thought, being a smart scientist, you would have brewed yourself up some 
potion to make yourself irresistible to women.'
    Dan unlocked the door of the outer office, and we crossed past Mrs. Wardell's empty 
desk to the inner laboratory door. He unlocked that, too, and we went in. The fluorescent 
lights flickered two or three times, and then went on.
    'I think you left your cigarillos over there someplace by the microscope,' said Dan. 
'I'm just going to the icebox next door to get out my swine fever slides if you want me.'
    I looked along the varnished laboratory benches, and there, under a sheaf of loose 
data paper, were my cigarillos. I took one out, and lit it, and waited for Dan to come 
back so that I could tell him good night. The laboratory^ was silent, except for the 
faint buzzing of the neon tubes. I coughed, and watched myself smoking in the dark 
window. I wondered if I was going to be too late to pick up a steak before I went home. I 
needed some roughage to soak up two beers and two Jack Daniel's.
    It was then that I heard the rustling noise. I didn't take any notice at first. I 
thought it was just the sheets of data paper, shifting from where I had moved them aside. 
But then I heard it again, more distinctly, and even though it teas coming from the 
paper, it certainly wasn't the settling of the paper itself. It was too quick, too 
scrabbly. There was something under there, and it sounded like a mouse.
    'Dan!' I called out.
    'I'm coming!' he told me.
    'I think I've caught the lunch break bandit!' I said.
    I saw the paper stirring, and I tippy-toed nearer and cupped my hands over the place 
where the rustling was coming from. There was a pause, but then the creature squeaked, 
and I flung aside that data paper like a blizzard and caught its wriggling body right 
between my palms. It squeaked again like crazy, and even tried to nip me with its teeth, 
but I had it trapped in there good and tight.
    Dan came in with a tray of samples and laid them on the bench.
    'Here he is,' I announced. The sandwich nibbler himself.'
    'You caught him? That's a neat trick. Now what are you going to do with him?'
    I looked down at my cupped hands. 'I don't know. Squash him to death, I guess.'
    Dan blinked at me. 'Could you really do that?' he asked.
    I shook my head. 'I guess not.'
    'Well, why don't you just let him go? The traps are going to catch him sooner or 
later.'
    'Maybe 1 ought to drive him up to Canada and release him at the border.'
    Dan laughed. 'Go on, just let him go.'
    I hunkered down, and gradually opened up my cupped hands. I saw a tiny pink nose, 
brown whiskers, pink ears, and a furry back. And then I saw something else that made me 
whip my hands away from that mouse so fast that I lost my balance, and fell with my 
shoulder against the cupboards under the bench.
    I said: 'Dan! For Christ's sake!'
    Dan turned and looked down at the floor where I had dropped the mouse. He didn't 
realize that anything was wrong at first, but then he stared in horror and fascination at 
the creature that stood shaking and trembling on the polished parquet, unwilling or 
unable to move.
    'What in hell happened to him? he asked, under his breath. He knelt down beside the 
mouse and peered at it even closer. The mouse squeaked a little but didn't try to run 
away.
    It couldn't, of course. From the middle of its back towards its hindquarters, it was 
covered in some kind of dark, scaley excrescence that gave it the appearance of a huge 
black beetle. Even its rear legs and its feet had been affected, and they were claw-like 
and scabrous. Every one of the rough scales on its back and sides had a dull greeny-black 
sheen, although their edges were ragged.
    I got to my feet, my knees weak with disgust and fright, and I went and washed my 
hands in the laboratory sink. I had felt all those scales when I had caught the mouse, 
but I had imagined they were nothing but sharp claws. My last beer rose in the back of my 
throat, and it was only by taking a deep breath that I persuaded it to go down again.
    Dan was on all fours now, with a transparent plastic foot-rule, and he was gently