"He hung up and I went to bed again, but this time I could not sleep. My brain was a riot of surmise. When the phone rang, again, as of course it did in a matter of moments, a shiver of fear transfixed every inch of my body. A woman again. 'See here,' I greeeted the inevitable query. 'This must stop. I am not Marrowitz, madam, nor is this his market.' This time I hung up the phone.

"The next time it rang, I picked it up with a trembling hand. 'Marrowitz?' It was a little girl this time.

"'No, no, no,' I almost shreiked. 'Leave me alone, do you hear, leave me alone!'"

I looked at the Vagabond's ashen face. There were tears in his eyes. He cleared his throat, blew his nose, and went on. "After that they came thick and fast. Sometimes the phone rang before I had relinquished my grip on the newly-cradled receiver. Marrowitz, Marrowitz, Marrowitz, roared in a tumultuous crescendo inside my skull. Finally I fled into the unknown morning, vaguely seeking surceace in Sever Hall with Uzbek Studies 229. It was ghastly--so ghastly I cannot talk about it. The obscene rites that there transpired, as registered on my fear-crazed brain by my blear-hazed eyes have completed the utter rout of my resources, made me the shattered hulk you now behold, and driven me back to my couch."

Suddenly he burst into tears, and remained sobbing quietly for some time. As he stopped, the room became deathly quiet.

Then, suddenly, dramatically, the silence was rent in shiver. The phone! It was ringing! Again!'

Vag uttered a low sound, the sound men make when their world has crashed in ruins about them. His eyes were a thousand years old. As he shambled to his feet, his features had a strained expression horribly unlike them. He looked like a robot, a zombie. Suddenly he was almost unrecognizable.

He picked up the phone slowly, with a strange, terribly matter-of-fact air. "Hello," he said in a dull, unfamiliar voice. "This is Marrowitz's Market. Marrowitz speaking."