When Dr. Allport Brinton's alarm clock sounded, it brought madness. It was very clever; it not only rang chimes of amazing penetrating power, it turned on all the lights in the room, closed the window, and started his bath water running. But this morning it was not appreciated. In fact, as Dr. Brinton got out of bed, he silently called down evil on the technician who had built it for him.

The "off" switch was on the wall farthest away from his bed and was controlled by a hair-trigger combination dial that couldn't be operated by anyone not fully awake. Dr. Brinton fumbled for a while, then gave up and started looking for his bedroom slippers. They had apparently crawled away during the night.