Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, Issue 45 — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SOME OTHER TIME mouth, ready with a torrent of angry, bitter words. His mouth hung open and his white face went a shade of dirty grey. Over the shoulders of his two visitors he could see the filing cabinet. Its doors were sliding noiselessly open and files were being lifted out. The cardboard containers hung suspended in mid air. Then a shower of papers cascaded from them, spread like flutter- ing autumn leaves over the floor. He couldn’t say a thing. Merrick and Mackenzie were looking at him with growing wonder spreading over their faces. Merrick took his cigar out of his thick mouth. “‘What is the matter, Doc- tor? Are you ill?” “No,” Carpenter croaked. He laid his hands flat on his desk and pushed his chair back. ““No. I’m perfectly all right.”” That was what he had said to Louise. What would she say if she came in and saw her meticulously arranged files scattered aii over the floor ? He began to giggle uncontrollably. 21 “Doctor Carpenter! I de- mand to know what is the matter!’ That was Mackenzie. Carpenter knew in a flash of insight that the sallow little man was scared of anything he could not at once docket and file in the right portion of his brain for reference. The room was very hot. Carpenter rose without an- swering and walked round his desk. As he reached the two men sitting tensed in their chairs the papers scattered on the floor wisped into the air, collected themselves into neat batches, secreted themselves into their cardboard files and popped back into the cabinet drawers. The drawers slid back with soft metallic clicks. “Did you hear that?” Car- penter demanded. “Hear what?’ Merrick’s face held a frozen horror, as though he were in the presence of a madman. ““‘Why——” began Carpen- ter, and then stopped as the three sharp raps came on the office door. He relaxed. His comicloooks.conm