Out Like a Light

by Randall Garrett; Laurence M. Janifer

"Try a stationery store, youngster," the old man said. "I thought I'd heard 'em all, but—"

"No," Malone said. "You don't understand."

"I don't have to understand," the old man said. "That's what's so restful about this here job. I just got to sweep up. I don't have to understand nothing. Good-by."

"I'm looking for a notebook I lost here last night," Malone said desperately.

"Oh," the old man said. "Lost and Found. That's different. You come with me."

The old man led Malone in silence to a cave deep in the bowels of the theater, where he went behind a little desk, took up a pencil as if it were a club, held it poised over a sheet of grimy paper, and said: "Name?"

Malone said: "I just want to find a notebook."

"Got to give me your name, youngster," the old man said solemnly. "It's the rules here. After all."

Malone sighed: "Kenneth Malone," he said. "And my address is—"

The old man, fiercely scribbling, looked up. "Wait a minute, can't you?" he said. "I ain't through 'Kenneth' yet." He wrote on, and finally said: "Address?"