"Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today;
Oh, how I wish he'd go away."
--William Hughes Mearns (1899)

The doors of the self-service elevator opened and out stepped Eliot V. Wilson, Sr. Tailored in a gray business suit with matching umbrella clutched under his left arm, he walked briskly down the hall to room 1003 and rapped on the door. Before he could knock again, the door was pulled open by a short man with tousled hair, rumpled bib overalls, and a frayed white shirt.

"There was a note on my desk that you wanted to see me, John," Wilson said as he strode inside. "It said urgent. Is there anything wrong?"

"No, no, nothing wrong. But there's something I want you to witness," John closed the door carefully behind his visitor. "I've been working all night preparing for an experiment, and I'm ready to try it now. But I wanted someone to witness it, and naturally the first person I . . ."

"You know I'm busy at the office. My God, I thought something had happened to you. If I'd known you just wanted—"

"Wait till you see what this is all about," pleaded the other. "Just give me fifteen minutes of your time. I'll guarantee that you'll see one of the most remarkable things you've ever seen. Please?"

Wilson stood for a moment, considering the proposition. Then he smiled. "All right. Fifteen minutes. For old time's sake."

"Thanks, Mr. Wilson. Won't you sit down over here on the sofa while I explain what this is all about?" John quickly cleared a cloth and some tools from the sofa, and his guest sat. Then he pulled up another chair facing him.

"Now what sort of an experiment is this that needs a witness?"

"Now remember, you promised me fifteen minutes."

Wilson nodded.

"Well," said John, "you know about the little man inside the refrigerator who turns the light on when you open the door and off when you close it? The same little man who turns your alarm clock on to wake you up in the morning, and sometimes just pushes the stem in so you don't wake up until noon?"

The businessman started to smile, but saw that his friend was not smiling. "What are you talking about?"

"Come on, Mr. Wilson, you know about the little man. The one who makes the telephone ring when you least expect it."

"All right, I know what you're talking about, but I still don't see what you're driving at. I thought you were running some sort of experiment."

"Yes, I am, I am. I'm coming to that. But first, can you think of anything else the little man does?"

Wilson shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, all sorts of things, I suppose. He makes the voice come out of a radio."

"Yes, yes, that's a good one." John was happy to see that his friend understood so well. "He does all sorts of things. He controls things we can't even begin to imagine."

"Please, John, I've got things to do. What are you up to?"

John looked satisfied. Then he leaned forward and said in a low voice, "I'm going to try to kill that little man."

"What?"

"I think I know how I can kill the little man who does all the mysterious things around the world."

The businessman stood up and started toward the door. "I thought you were serious at first, but I don't find it funny wasting my time joking when I have work to do."

John caught his arm. "I am serious. I have something to show you. You promised to give me fifteen minutes."

"Look, John . . ."

"You promised, Mr. Wilson." Tears were coming to John s eyes.

"Look . . ."

"A promise is a promise."

Wilson returned sullenly to the sofa and sat down. He assumed the posture of one prepared to stick to his word, even to the bitter end.

John was happy again and went on with his explanation as if nothing had happened. "The whole idea came to me after dinner last night. I was sitting in that chair over there and thinking about the man in the refrigerator. It had been years since I'd thought of him at all. My arm was resting on the table next to me, and suddenly the idea came to me. My fingers were touching the table in one place and the heel of my hand was touching in a different place. Don't you see, I was in contact with the plane of the table in two separate places."

Wilson gave no indication that he understood; nor did it appear that he was even trying to understand.

"Nobody really thinks the little man exists," John continued, "because it is impossible to be in more than one place at a given instant. How can this little man be turning the lights on if someone in New York and someone in Los Angeles open their refrigerator doors at the same time? He can't be, everyone says. But I was touching the table in two separate places at the same time."

John wanted a response, but his guest sat on in stubborn silence. He was glaring at John.

"Look at it this way," John went on, "a two-dimensional figure, a plane figure, could have contact with a line, one dimension, in more than one place at one time by leaving the line and coming back to it. In the same way, a three-dimensional figure, like me for instance, can touch a plane in more than one place, as I touched the plane of the table in separate places last night."

This time the silence lasted so long that Mr. Wilson finally growled, "So what?"

"Just this, a four dimensional being would be able to contact our three-dimensional world in many different places at the same time. The little man we are talking about is in another dimension of a higher order, and he controls all the unexplainable phenomena in this world."

Wilson watched his friend closely, but could find no hint that he was making a joke. "You're nuts. You know, I really think you're out of your mind."

John ignored these remarks. "Let me show you something," he said, and walked over to a corner of the room. From a table he picked up a large object and brought it to the sofa. It was primarily the three sides of a corner of a box. There were three shiny, metal planes intersecting each other at right angles. In the center of this were ten brown, waxy tubes, and the whole thing was wound around with a silver wire which spiraled to a point.

"Is this what you've been working on all night?" asked Wilson. He was pleased to see his friend did indeed have something to show him. "What is it?"

John turned the contraption around in his hands, admiring it, showing it off. "See these things, ten of them?" he asked, pointing to the waxy tubes.

The other nodded.

"These are sticks of dynamite—"

"Hey, be careful with those, John."

"Don't worry. If these explode, they won t hurt anything around here. You see, these three plates will direct the blast perpendicularly away from themselves. The blast will be directed at right angles away from three-dimensional space. It will explode into the fourth dimension. This is the only way I have of getting at the little man—by firing from this dimension into the next . . . "

"Now dynamite isn't something to play around with." Wilson had located his umbrella and was preparing to make a run for the door.

" . . . and besides, this silver tubing is also directing the explosion to a point which would be the fifth point of an equivertical pentahedron made up by the rest of the structure. That fifth point does not exist in this dimension. Don't worry." John took up his invention and walked into the adjoining kitchen. As soon as he was out of sight, Wilson jumped up and ran to the door. No friendship was worth getting blown to bits over. John could take care of himself, this time. But he hesitated with his hand on the doorknob. There was a slight chance, after all, that his friend might know what he was doing, and sneaking out in the middle of an engagement is the height of rudeness. He muttered something obscene and went into the kitchen to tell his friend that he was leaving. As he walked through the doorway, he saw John doing something inside his refrigerator.

"Just a second." John must have heard him come in. After a short while he stepped back. There on the upper shelf of the refrigerator was the device he had made. Two wires led from it to the light in the upper corner. The light was not lit.

"All set," said John. "As soon as I shut this door and plug in the refrigerator, I'll be ready for him. Then when I open the door, the little man will turn on the light, and at the same time he will detonate the dynamite. It will explode into his dimension and destroy him." John shut the door, and, before Wilson could stop him, he stooped down and plugged in the refrigerator. Standing up, he reached for the handle. "Now I'll—"

"No!" cried Wilson, jumping forward and grabbing his friend. "Do you want to blow us to pieces!" They wrestled in silence for a moment until John got his arm free and pulled the door open.

Instantly there was a slight concussion and the sound of a muffled firecracker. The door swung open revealing a charred tray where the dynamite had been. A small cloud of smoke drifted upward. Both men dropped their arms and gazed into the chest.

"I don't know what kind of a joke you're trying to pull," snarled Wilson, "but I don't like it. I'm getting out of here."

John stood where he was and stared blankly into the refrigerator as if he couldn't quite grasp the significance of his own experiment.

Out in the hall Wilson rang for the self service elevator. Impatiently he took out a cigarette and put it in his trembling lips. Then he pulled out his lighter and struck it, but nothing happened. It apparently needed a new flint, for he couldn't even get a spark. He threw the cigarette on the floor, stuck the lighter back in his pocket, and rang again for the elevator. After a few minutes of waiting, he concluded it was out of order and walked down the ten flights of stairs. There was much confusion in the lobby, but he ignored it and walked out the back door to his car.

The sun was shining brightly so Wilson probably didn't notice that the interior light did not go on when he opened the car door. But he was quite annoyed when he turned the key in the ignition and nothing happened.