And with the newspapers,
and Whitburn, and Fitch, it could go on forever....
It was fully dark, now; his shadow fell ahead of him on the sidewalk,
lengthening as he passed under and beyond a street-light, vanishing as
he entered the stronger light of the one ahead. The windows of a cheap
cafe reminded him that he was hungry, and he entered, going to a table
and ordering something absently. There was a television screen over
the combination bar and lunch-counter. Some kind of a comedy
programme, at which an invisible studio-audience was laughing
immoderately and without apparent cause. The roughly dressed customers
along the counter didn't seem to see any more humor in it than he did.
Then his food arrived on the table and he began to eat without really
tasting it.
After a while, an alteration in the noises from the television
penetrated his consciousness; a news-program had come on, and he
raised his head. The screen showed a square in an Eastern city; the
voice was saying:
"... Basra, where Khalid ib'n Hussein was assassinated early this
morning--early afternoon, local time. This is the scene of the crime;
the body of the murderer has been removed, but you can still see the
stones with which he was pelted to death by the mob.
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