Then he filled his lungs to shout: "Hello, family!" but closed his mouth and let his breath out as muffled sounds of human activity came from the living room.
Frowning, Vanderhoff took three steps to the threshold. On the sofa, his wife sat in hot, amorous embrace with his neighbor Converse.
Converse looked up at the slight sound of Vanderhoff's entrance. Vanderhoff stared blankly. Then the habits of a lifetime started to curl his lips into a cordial smile of greeting, while at the same time a rising fury distorted this automatic smile into something else—an expression at which Converse looked with visible horror.
Vanderhoff took a step forward. Converse, though he outweighed the professor of French Literature by twenty pounds, tore himself loose from Penelope, looked furtively around, and crashed through the window.
There was a scrambling in the shrubbery outside. At the same instant, from the other direction came the cries and footfalls of a crowd pursuing something along the street, but Vanderhoff's attention was drawn by a loud cry from beyond the window, followed by the yelclass="underline" "Ow! Help! It's got me!"
Vanderhoff hurried to the window.
Converse had fallen among the bulldog bushes, which had instantly seized him. Two of the jaws had grips on each of his legs, or at least on the trousers that clothed them, while a fifth held a fold of his sport-shirt.
Converse, on hands and knees, had crawled as far out of the clump as he could and was trying to get farther, while the other jaws of the bushes lunged and snapped at him like the heads of snakes.
He had knocked over a couple of the wire guards that Vanderhoff had set up in front of the bushes. His right hand had blood on it, apparently from a cut sustained when he broke the window. Fragments of glass, reflecting the golden sunset, gleamed on the frantically trampled ground among the bushes.
VANDERHOFF stood with pursed lips, contemplating various kinds of assault. If he merely used his fists, Converse would grab him and probably give him a worse beating than he inflicted. Then he remembered Dan's bat. He strode into the hall, picked up the bat, went out the back door, and came around to where Converse sprawled in the grip of the bushes.
"Hey!" cried Converse."Don't do that, Carl! Let’s be civilized about this! I didn't mean any harm! I was just—"
The sound of a blunt instrument on a human skull ended his explanation. Converse yelped and moaned, but could not crawl back among the bushes lest worse befall him.
As Vanderhoff stepped back, sounds from the street attracted his attention. He hurried around the corner of his house and saw a strange procession winding toward the Converse home.
First came Sydney Devore, beating his Indian drum. Then came four neighbors, each holding one limb of a short, fat man who struggled. Then came the other neighbors, male and female, moving in a fashion that resembled one of the more athletic Latin-American dances.
As the line passed Devore's place, his singing shrubs burst into Clementine.
Vanderhoff found these sights and sounds so strange that, foregoing further revenge for the moment, he followed the procession with the bat on his shoulder.
The marchers danced up to the Converse house. One guest raised the lid of the pitcher of the tree of Eden, while the four who held the little man prepared to thrust him in.
Vanderhoff caught up with the head of the procession and asked Devore: "Hey, Sydney, what's going on? Are you all crazy?"
"No-o, we're just going to reward the tree for its lovely fruit."
"You mean they're going to sacrifice this man? Who is he, anyway?"
Devore explained about H. Breckenridge Bing."The other one got away. He could run faster."
"But what'll happen to this one?"
Devore shrugged."He'll be digested, I suppose. Serves him right. It should stimulate the tree no end."
"You're insane," said Vanderhoff, and pushed his way through the crowd to the tree.
The four stalwarts had finally inserted Bing into the amphora, despite his struggles and the tightness of the fit. Muffled cries came from inside. Bing's fingers could be seen curled over the edge of the pitcher as he tried to force his way out, but the plant now held down the lid by its own mechanisms. The amphora remained closed, though it bulged this way and that as Bing kicked and butted.
"GET away!" said Vanderhoff, shoving the Converses' guests aside and grasping the edge of the lid.
"Wait, you can't do that!" Dietz cried, seizing Vanderhoff's arm."Leave our plant alone or we'll feed you to it, too!"
Vanderhoff resignedly hit Dietz over the head with his bat. As Dietz staggered back, holding his head, several other guests rushed at Vanderhoff. He waded in with the bat, cracking arms, heads, and knuckles with such verve that the attackers fell back, leaving the football-playing Moseley unconscious on the lawn.
Vanderhoff then returned to the tree of Eden, keeping an eye cocked for another rush. When heaving on the lid had no effect, he struck the amphora with his bat. This induced a yell of anguish from inside, but did not loosen the plant's hold.
Then Vanderhoff got out his pocket-knife and attacked the hinge of the stein-lid. He drew it across the grain again and again. After he had sawed half an inch into the structure, he found he had weakened the hinge enough so that he could raise the lid.
Bing climbed out. His glasses were gone and his scanty hair was awry. His skin was covered with red spots and his clothes were stained by the tree's digestive juices.
He peered nearsightedly at Vanderhoff."Did you get me out? Thanks. As for the rest of you—"
Mary Converse shook her head and said: "I don't know what could have got into us, Mr. Bing. I'd never do such a dreadful thing."
"Gratisone got into you, that's what," said Bing."Now you see why we can't let just anybody plant extraterrestrial plants."
The others, too, seemed to be coming out of their madness. Mr. Hort said: "You must let us pay to have your suit cleaned."
Dietz said: "We'd better buy him a new suit. The plant's digestive juices will eat that one full of holes."
It was finally agreed that Mr. O'Ryan should act as banker for the neighborhood and assess them whatever was needed to repay the damages sustained by Bing. Just as this agreement was reached, one of the township's patrol cars drew up. Out got Deputy Marshal Jacobson and the two local policemen.
Jacobson growled: "You're all under arrest for forcibly intimidating a United States officer!"
"They couldn't help it, Jake," said Bing."It was the fruit. I'm not going to press any complaints."
"Why not?" demanded Jacobson.
"Well, Mr. Devore said he liked my article. I didn't know anybody had even read it."
CARL Vanderhoff returned home late that evening, after he and Devore had departed in Jacobson's official car and Converse, released from the bulldog bush, in an ambulance.
He told his wife: "They let me sign my own bond. It seems I'm something of a hero for rescuing that little botanist, so I shall be let off easily. And Bill never said a word about me; he just let them think it was the bushes that beat him into a pulp. He'd better! And now what have you to say?"
"I—I don't know how to explain—- I must have gone out of my head—I never loved anybody but you—"
"That's all right," said Vanderhoff, and told her about gratisone."Now that that's over, send those kids in here. Dan is going to be penalized for leaving his bat on the floor, and the whole outfit will be run on orderly lines from now on. No backtalk, either."