"Listen, pal," I said. "This joke is costing a couple of guys some lucrative trade. You are tying up a telephone they need badly in their business, or didn't you know that?"

"That can't be helped," the voice said stiffly.

"Be a good sport and get off the wire," I said.

"I have no intention of doing that until my boss has talked to Hitler and Mussolini," the voice said coldly. I knew a positive statement when I heard one. I hung up, clambered out of the booth, spread my hands expressively to Mike and Mort who stood there eagerly waiting for some good word.

"No soap," I said. "I don't think you got a joker on there, and I'd swear you haven't got a drunk."

"What have we got, then," Mike demanded. "A smart copper waiting to trap us?"

I shook my head. "I think you got a loony," I said. "But don't quote me." I started toward the door. "I got work to do, gents, but I'll look in again a little later. Hope you get rid of your pest."

"We'd better," Mike moaned dismally.

"Brother," Mort declared, pulling his hair and making a sincerely distraught face, "you're not kidding!"

I looked at the telephone booth and shook my head. "Somebody is," I told them....

For perhaps three hours I was able to concentrate on my work, with the telephone booth distraction cropping up only about every fifteen minutes or so to give me the fidgets.

At the end of that time, a little before two o'clock, I finally covered up my reproachful typewriter and, on the excuse that I wanted a c.o.ke, left the office to go down and see how the boys were doing with the determined loony on their telephone.

The "cigar store" was crowded with the usual early-afternoon hang-arounders when I walked in. Mort and Mike, each behind a dice board, were accommodating trusting suckers who had somehow gotten the mistaken idea that Hooligan was a game you beat every other time.

Mike, looking up, noticed my entrance first. He signaled to me, muttered an excuse to the dice roller at his board, and came quickly around the counter. He took me by the arm and steered me out into the building lobby.

"Listen, pal," he half-whispered, "fer gawdsakes don't say anything about the jerk on the telephone. Mort and me ain't told anyone, fer fear of the ribbing we'd get, plus the kick in the pants it would give our regular betting business over the counter."

"You mean the guy's still on the telephone?" I demanded.

Mike nodded a little sickly. "We can't get him off. And since we ain't letting on to no one about the phone being fritzed that way, every time he rings, we pretend we're getting an odd change, or some scratches or result. Mort an' me have been running our legs off, using a telephone next door to get our prices and results and such dope from the syndicate. But don't let on. We ain't told no one!"

"Okay," I promised. "I'll keep mum. But who in the h.e.l.l do you suppose it is?"

Mike lowered his voice even more, looking furtively around the building lobby.

"Confidentially, although we don't dare draw attention to our joint since the State's Attorney is telephone prowling, Mort and me decided you was right. It must be a loony. All we can do is wait until he gets tired and gets off."

I nodded. "That's about all you can do," I agreed. "Does he still want to talk to Hitler and Mussolini?"

Mike nodded disgustedly. "Worse than ever. Calling every twenty minutes now. Mort and me is going crazy answering them calls and pretending they ain't nothing but syndicate results."

"I don't blame you," I said. "I would, too." Mike went back into the store and behind the dice board. I took a c.o.ke out of the cooler and uncapped it on the side of the machine.

Mort sent me a message in his glance, and I nodded rea.s.suringly to him.

"I don't know anything," I said.

Mort grinned a sick, grateful sort of grin, and went back to the task of taking quarters from his customers. Taking my time with my cigarette, I finished my c.o.ke. Then the telephone rang, as I'd been waiting for it to do.

Mort dashed to the booth, closed the door as he entered, and for several flushed minutes appeared to be talking into the phone and writing something on a scratch pad. But I knew it was an act from the pained expression on his face. I knew that the loony was babbling away again and that Mort was having to listen for the sake of the pose.

When at last he hung up, he emerged mopping his face with a gaily colored handkerchief. The look he shot me was confirmation enough that the loony was still on the wire.

Unable to feel too sorry for the boys, I concealed a grin behind a yawn, nodded to them both, and left the place. Upstairs once more in my office I got back into a rather muggy stream of work on which I found difficulty concentrating.

For some reason I couldn't at first explain to myself, I kept thinking about the telephone loony of Mike and Mort's. Not because of the ironically ridiculous turmoil it threw them into, but for some other reason far more subtle, but which I was unable to put my finger on.

The thing amused me, puzzled me, and yet, somehow was beginning to trouble me. Not through any great sympathy for Mike or Mort, of course. It will be a cold day when my heart bleeds for bookmakers. But something or other _was_ growing more and more bothersome. I thought about it a while, then shoved it out of my mind and got back to work.

I was able to grind along for a couple of hours without having it come back into my mind. And when it popped up again, I shoved it away once more just as quickly. I had to get that work out, and I knew I wouldn't if I stewed any longer over the telephone loony who was quite probably still playing hob with Mike and Mort at that moment.

It was a little after five o'clock, five-fifteen, to be exact, when--work or no work--the thing hit me. Bang! Like that I knew what'd been in the back of my mind.

How in the name of blazes had the telephone loony been able to stay on that wire so indefinitely? Why hadn't the operator broken in to end the connection each time Mort or Mike hung up? It seemed logical that she would have done so. The loony couldn't have just held onto the telephone and been right on tap the moment Mort or Mike picked up the hook. The loony could have called them, of course, but it would have been impossible for him to be on hand every time they picked up the telephone when it hadn't been ringing!

I left my typewriter, not even bothering to remove the page in it, and hurried out of the office. Downstairs I found the "cigar store"

completely deserted except for Mike and Mort. The day's races were over, and dice customers who were willing enough to roll cubes in office time, had headed homeward.

"Brother," Mort greeted me, "you were right and how!"

"About the loony--" I began.

"That's right," Mort said. "He was as loony a loony as I've ever heard of. We finally got rid of him."

"Got rid of him?" I blurted the question.

"Yeah," Mort nodded. "And I hope for good. He just faded off, about half an hour after his voice began to get dimmer and dimmer, and that was that."

"But--" I began.

"And wait'll you hear who that bug thought he was."

"Gabby who?" I asked.

"Gabby, nuts. I messed it up the first time. He thought he was Gabriel, the _Angel_ Gabriel, no less!" Mort exclaimed, tapping the side of his head.

"The Angel Gabriel?" I echoed.

Mort nodded. "And guess who he was calling for?"

"Don't tell me," I said.