When the issue was out, Clocker waited around the main newsstands on Broadway. He watched the customers buy, study unbelievingly, and wander off looking as if all the tracks in the country had burned down simultaneously.
Doc Hawkins found him there.
"Clocker, my boy! You have no idea how anxious we were about you. But you're looking fit, I'm glad to say."
"Thanks," Clocker said abstractedly. "I wish I could say the same about you and the rest of the world."
Doc laughed. "No need to worry about us. We'll muddle along somehow."
"You think so, huh?"
"Well, if the end is approaching, let us greet it at the Blue Ribbon. I believe we can still find the lads there."
They were, and they greeted Clocker with gladness and drinks. Diplomatically, they made only the most delicate references to the revamping job Clocker had done on his tip sheet.
"It's just like opening night, that's all," comforted Arnold Wilson Wyle. "You'll get back into your routine pretty soon."
"I don't want to," said Clocker pugnaciously. "Handicapping is only a way to get people to read what I really want to tell them."