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“But—your speech!”

“I’ve made some changes. I’m omnivorous now, too, not just carnivorous—or will be in a few more hours. I can go into the hills and live on grass, or grow back into a man, or whatever I like.”

Amos consulted his own inwardness again. “Is this possible? Can a human mind be compressed into a cat’s brain?”

“Sure,” said Unconscious, “if you’re willing to junk all the excess.”

He thought about it. “So you’re going to stay around and watch,” he said to the cat—no, Frank. “An intriguing idea. My family’s taken care of, and nobody’ll really miss me.”

“Except Alice Grant,” said Frank cattily. “I’ve seen the way you look at her. The cat part of me has, I mean. And she looks back, too, when you aren’t watching.”

“Well,” said Amos. “Hm. Maybe we can do something there too.”

His own metamorphosis took a lot longer than five hours; he had a much bigger job of alterations to finish. It was nearly two months before he got back to the plant.

He peered in through the window at Detrick, who’d inherited Amos’ old office. Detrick was chewing out a salesman. Amos knew what would be happening now; Derrick’s ambitious but unsound expansion would have gotten the division all tangled up. In fact, with his sharp new eyes, Amos could read part of a letter from Buffalo that lay on the desk. It was quite critical of Detrick’s margin of profit.