Dr. Ferber saw Dr. Brinton standing in the doorway and came over to him immediately.
"That telephone operator gets too excited," he said. "There's no fire, and I think it was an implosion, not an explosion. Wrecked our new pressure catalyzer. Harrison's gone to hospital and the two you see are hurt, but none of it's very serious. I suppose Butcher Boy is going to put this down in his little notebook, too."
"If you are referring to me," said the Senator's voice behind them, "I most certainly am going to make a note of it. And I suggest you both start advertising for other jobs."
Brinton had been indulging in a pleasant little fantasy in which he had cut Senator MacNeill up into twenty-eight pieces, placed them in aluminum cans, and made them radioactive in the Station pile. He was smiling at the newsreel cameras, about to fire the first Senator-powered spaceship in the history of mankind, when his alarm clock, which had maliciously been waiting for just such an opportunity, spoiled his dream by waking him up.
That was how the next day started. It continued in the same vein when, in a fit of petulance, he strode into his clothes closet and kicked the alarm control box, barefoot. He was working the combination dial for the third or fourth time when he noticed that his feet were getting wet. His kick must have jammed some relays in the control box; the bath water was overflowing. Since the box was sealed to prevent him from fooling with it, he had had to prevent a flood by limping downstairs and pulling the master switch.
With no electricity, his breakfast consisted of cold fruit juice, cold cereal, and cold milk. When he got to his office, he ordered a pot of coffee and made out a requisition for a pipe wrench. If it ever happened again, he was going to shut the water off instead.
His secretary came in with the coffee and poured him a cup.
"I have some letters for you to sign," she said brightly, to cheer him up. Dr. Brinton drank his coffee. "Our new filing system is working very well," she added, pouring him another cup. The doctor's face relaxed a little, but it was because the snow bank in his stomach was beginning to melt. His secretary played her trump. "And somebody from the Fuels Department phoned and said something was passing the yellow line and might make the blue."
She was never sure afterward whether Dr. Brinton had gone around his desk, or over it. She had blinked and by the time her eyes were open again, he was gone.