Be careful what you wish for.

How many times had he heard people, especially family, tell him that? Jimmy couldn't remember. But that old, old piece of advice was coming back to haunt him now as he held his breath in anticipation of what was about to happen next. Jimmy had a pretty good idea of what Mandy's plan was, and he had to hand it to his big sister for quick and creative thinking. She wasn't just a female grizzly in human form. She practically qualified as an evil genius minus most of the evil part. But the guy who was in charge here, and who was obviously the evil criminal type, might just have wrecked their plans. Jimmy sure hoped Tem could play along with Mandy's scheme and resist the hypno-lamp's power on a second try, because all their lives were depending on it. If Tem let that spinning lamp shade turn him into a vacant-eyed trance victim again and confirmed the lead mobster's worst suspicions, they might be doomed.

But . . . but Artemus West was Uncle Jim's son, and that meant he could do just about anything, right?

Jimmy had grown up believing that, and he wanted very much to believe it right now. The lamp had gotten lucky the first time, that was all. Tem knew what it was now and he wouldn't be lulled by it again, whereas the gangsters . . . .

Jimmy was forced to exhale as his sister set her hand on the lampshade and got it spinning. This time the lamp was lit from within, not reflecting sunlight showing through it, and that almost seemed to give it a different quality. Around and around the shade went, winking a deceptively warm and innocent light that Tem was being forced to stare straight into, while Mandy remained silent, careful to say nothing that might give the criminals a clue of what she was planning to do when they looked into it. Such a beautiful lamp . . . .

Whoops!

Jimmy had to force himself not to watch the spinning shade and its light show too closely himself – and nudge and shake his head at the Federal Investigators as a way of silently advising them not to fall into the trap either. Fortunately, Yerba's men took no notice of anything Jimmy or the Investigators were doing right now. The lamp had them fascinated, if not hypnotized yet, for sure. All their eyes were on the flashing, winking spectacle taking place right in front of them. In spite of their boss' warning, several of the gang members, as far back as they stood, were craning their necks to see if they could get a glimpse of dancing, buxom beauties baring their all. Their leader's eyes, and Mandy's, were on Tem while he watched the winking lamp directly at its full force. To Jimmy's relief, Tem didn't appear to be staring vacantly or dropping his jaw or drooling or anything. Instead, his mouth first and then his other features began to twitch a little and he peered in even closer to get a better look at what he was staring at. Then, all of a sudden, he drew himself back with a horrified grimace of disapproval that mirrored Mandy's, shook his head sadly, blinked and shrugged, as if embarrassed.

"Well, it's not as if our fathers were saints, after all," he sighed. "And they did like pretty gir- uh, women," Tem said with a forlorn wince at his wife. "Er, lots of women."

"And I suppose Jimmy was the one who brought it?" Jimmy's sister demanded. Jimmy had no trouble wincing a bit himself. Her tone of voice could freeze lava.

"It wasn't me, I swear!" Tem protested. If his hands hadn't been cuffed behind him, he'd probably have held them out in front of himself while pleading innocent.

Mandy used the flat of her hand to stop the lamp shade from spinning, bringing the light show to an abrupt halt, to the disappointed murmuring of the gangsters who'd tried to get a better look. Jimmy recalled listening to a lecture at University by his alienist friend Glen on the power of suggestion. Even without Mandy's voice persuasively telling the gangsters yet what they'd be seeing in the light of the lamp, some of them might have thought they caught a glimpse of the sinful girly show. They were eager for more. And Tem was capable of withstanding hypnosis, all right – just like his father would have been. Jimmy could breathe easier about that much at least.

The head gangster must have been breathing easier too. Tem and Mandy's argument had him convinced that the lamp wasn't a trap after all, but a naughty stereopticon peep show exactly like Mandy said it was.

"What'sa matter, West?" the lead man snickered. "Don'cha like watching pretty girlies dancing in the nude? Or do you only like 'em in men's clothes?" He sneered, giving Jimmy's sister the once over with his eyes once more, then commanding his thugs to shove Tem aside, back with the captive Investigators. Now he gave his gang members permission to watch, waving them forward with his hands. "Gather 'round, boys! We got us a sweet little show to watch!"

Jimmy was astonished. Surely the mobster wasn't so careless, so overconfident that he'd let all his men watch the lamp instead of at least some of them watching the prisoners? Jimmy would never have allowed that sort of thing if he had been an evil villain. But this mobster apparently really was that careless and overconfident. Mandy must have known that about him when she came up with this plan. Then again, what did any of the criminals think they had to fear? They had guns – their captives did not. And they didn't know what the lamp was or what it could do to them. They didn't suspect a thing. None of the gang's members appeared to have any sterner sense of caution or guard duty obligation than their boss, or not much, anyway. They moved in closer, crowding the circular perimeter around the lamp, ogling the stained-glass shade as if it was a dancing girl itself in happy anticipation of the coming attraction.

"Go on, girly," the head mobster chuckled, keeping his gun pointing at Mandy, Jimmy realized. "Make with the spin again and let's see those saloon broads do their thing!"

"But!" Mandy prudishly protested.

"I said do it," the mobster nudged her with the barrel of the gun.

Pretending to be reluctant and frightened, as if this wasn't all going according to her plan, Mandy began spinning the lampshade again, starting the blinking and winking light show once more. Jimmy could see the top of the lampshade going around and around again, but this time he didn't have to worry about being dazzled by the warm, hypnotic light or worry that the Investigators would be either. The armed criminals were blocking the view. As the shade spun faster and faster though, Mandy began to speak in a soft voice.

"You see them now, don't you?" she asked. "Here they come, the happy saloon girls with their feather boas . . . ."

A couple of the gang members jostled one another to get a better view, but Jimmy's friend Glen had been right about the power of suggestion being powerful – maybe almost as powerful as the lamp itself. Some of them, the ones at enough of an angle for Jimmy to see their faces, were starting to grin and leer at the light as they stared into the lamp.

"All of them dancing for your entertainment . . . ." There wasn't anything disapproving about the tone Mandy was using now. It was warm and encouraging. "You can almost hear the music they're dancing to, can't you . . . ?"

"I don't see nothing yet," the lead mobster groused, but not very angrily. Even if he wasn't falling into a trance as quickly as his men, the lamp seemed to be having a tranquilizing effect on him. He was staring into the light with all his attention, paying no heed to how his men were starting to react.

"You have to look at it closely . . . ." Mandy's voice droned on. "So closely . . . . You can't take your eyes off it . . . ."

And as simple as that, from what Jimmy could see, the mobsters were caught in the lamp's spell. They really couldn't take their eyes off of it. One or two of them was drooling with lust at the imagined sight of the moving pictures that the lamp didn't really contain.

"There's the blond one . . . ." Mandy said slowly and soothingly. "And oh, look . . . . They're starting to toss the feather boas aside . . . ."

The lead gangster must have liked blonds. He not only now saw what he thought everyone else was seeing, he gave a slow wolf whistle of appreciation.

"Keep watching . . . ." Mandy told them. "Now they're getting to the good part . . . . Keep watching . . . ."

Mandy herself wasn't looking at the lamp. She was watching the criminals. As they all appeared to be entranced by the old stained-glass relic, she looked over at Tem and Jimmy, and with her free hand signaled for them and the Investigators to take advantage of this situation and move silently around the tableau of their hypnotized jailers to make their way out the door of the room. The Investigators were mystified as to what was happening to the criminals, how Mandy had ensorcelled the gang, but they weren't stupid. Appreciating that any loud noise might break the spell, they stood up as quietly as possible, half of them untied now and helping the other half, while Mandy's soft voice kept up its persuasive instruction.

"You don't want to miss a single second of this . . . ." she told the gang. "They're still dancing, but now they're starting to take off those little straps . . . ."

Jimmy almost wished he could just stand there himself to hear the rest. He was definitely going to have to ask Tem and his sister some more questions about saloon girls when they got back to the train. For right now, he and the others were still in danger, and he, Secret Agent James Ulysses Gordon had a job to do.

Tem, still unable to free his hands, used silent, nodding gestures to instruct the Investigators to escape through the door while they had the chance, and for their leader Mr. Wickersham to pick up the sealed flask of glowing green liquid and take it with them. Drat it, Jimmy would have liked to be the one entrusted with that job, but then who would stay in this room to carry out the all-important task of dunking his sister's skirt into a pail full of water with hopefully dramatic results? Jimmy pantomimed to Tem and the others what he intended to do once they escaped, holding the twisted-up skirt in one hand and pulling his shirt collar up over his mouth and nose and covering them with his free hand. Tem might not have been able to get the full story, but he knew how his Uncle Arte's sleep gas chemicals worked. He got the idea.

The Investigators listened at the doorway, peered out, opened it and carefully slipped out one at a time, taking the flask of Franconium hydrate. The mobsters paid them no attention whatsoever. Visions of dancing girls kept them bespelled, their focus on the lamp and their gun hands lowered, breathing heavy, eyes bugging out, mouths gaping . . . Jimmy saw and looked away fast. If the inventor of the lamp had ever been pulled up from watery depths and put in a proper grave, he'd be spinning in it as fast as the lampshade right now, Jimmy bet. But that old invention was doing its job brilliantly and so was Mandy.

"And now they're starting to . . . ."

Mandy kept up her gentle, seductive descriptions, watching all the while to make sure everyone else was escaping. But Jimmy noticed one person who was not – not a gang member, but the State Department man Mr. Flemings. He, like Jimmy and Mandy, hadn't been tied with ropes and he had been closer to the front of the group than the rest of them. There was enough of a gap in between gangsters near where Mr. Flemings had been standing that he had watched and been entranced by the hypnotic lamplight as well. Nothing to do about it now. As the last of the Federal Investigators made it out, Tem glared at the State man in frustration but had no way to pick him up or shove him out the door. Flemings would just have to experience the joys of Artemus Gordon's chemical wizardry along with the gang members. Tem made it to the threshold and looked over to Mandy and Jimmy. Mandy acknowledged him with a nod. It was her turn to go now, if she could extricate herself from the crowd of mobsters around her. Their leader was no longer pointing his gun at her but had let it droop while he gazed obsessively at a scantily-clad blond saloon girl that existed only in his imagination. Mandy looked around, decided on a route, gave the lampshade one last, firm spin and began weaving her way carefully to the door, keeping up her patter as she did.

Jimmy paid no attention to the remaining words of her command to the gangsters. He was concentrating on his own action. He had to creep closer to the entranced crooks in order to be near enough to the water bucket to toss the chemical-laden skirt in, and he had to do it without snapping any of them out of the lamp's spell. No remarkable athlete, he couldn't afford to risk a distance toss that might miss. With the bucket of water finally within reach and mindful of the location of the doorway, which Tem and Mandy were now watching him through and looking full of concern – gosh, thanks for that confidence booster! – Jimmy took one deep breath, held the skirt out at arm's length as far as he could and then dropped it into the water. Bullseye!

Jimmy almost fell backward and nearly lost his chance to escape as a reddish geyser of sleep smoke burst straight upwards from the pail toward the ceiling. Somehow he kept his balance, made the full turn that he had to and ran like a track and field champion for the door, holding his breath all the way. Mandy and Tem had to duck out of his way he got out of that room so fast. Then they all risked having the door make a noise as Mandy, holding her breath too, slammed it shut. The three Secret Service agents, not daring to inhale yet, dashed to where the Federal Investigators were waiting. Jimmy was glad to see there were no more armed gangsters waiting to ambush them – they must all have been in that room or still downstairs. Their small group of law enforcers weren't out of the woods yet, but there was definitely light poking through those trees.

The Investigators looked puzzled at everything that had just happened. Well, they had a right to be puzzled after all. But they remained silent, still seeking to communicate through gestures rather than make any noise. Then they, and Jimmy, Mandy and Tem heard through the wall of the hallway a sound that was sweet music to Jimmy's ears: the thump, thump, thump of unconscious gangster bodies hitting the floor. Lots of them. Jimmy had been afraid, while Mandy was using the lamp on them, that one or more of the gangsters might have caught on and resisted the lamp's effect just as Tem had. But no one shut in that room would have escaped the effects of such a big cloud of sleep gas.

"That takes care of Yerba and his gang up here," Tem whispered to Wickersham and the others. "No telling how many more are downstairs, but if we wait several minutes, it should be safe for us to go back in there. We'll be able to take their guns and turn the tables." Artemus Gordon's sleep gas formulas were powerful, and this one must have constituted a triple dose, but once fully converted into gas form by liquid activation, they all neutralized themselves within minutes. "And we still need to get that," Tem nodded toward the glowing green flask in Wickersham's hands, "to safety before anything else happens to it."

Mr. Wickersham looked like he'd been asked to carry a bomb, Jimmy thought. But better in his hands than in the gangsters' ownership. And maybe now that Jimmy was done with his difficult, heroic role of . . . well, of using a weapon that Oscar Montague was NOT going to hear about ever, Jimmy could even more heroically offer to shoulder the burden for Mr. Wickersham by-

"No, Jimmy," Mandy said firmly.

Drat it! How did she do that?

"Um, think you could get these things off me?" Tem whispered to Jimmy, turning around and holding out his arms from his back as far as he could. Before Jimmy could reply, one of the Investigators had already stepped forward to do the job with a small lockpick he'd apparently had on his person, unlike Jimmy, who didn't even seem to have brought his trusty screwdriver with him today. Awkward. Imagine a seasoned, travelled, mature Secret Service agent like him being beaten to the punch by a rookie! "Thanks!" Tem sighed with relief and rubbed his freed wrists. "Jimmy, how long do you think we have to wait for that smoke to dissipate?"

"Not sure," Jimmy admitted. "It wasn't exactly a measured dose like usual. Maybe five minutes?"

Given the uncertain strength of that chemical cloud, they decided to wait a full seven minutes, while posting a lookout for any more gang members coming up from below. Those minutes took an eternity ticking by. Someday Jimmy might look back and laugh at his memories, he thought, but it wouldn't include memories of today.

At last enough time had passed that they decided to take the risk. One of the rookie Investigators insisted on volunteering to go in first. He opened the door warily, went in amidst the spectacle of one State Department official and a dozen gangsters all fallen deeply unconscious in a bizarre circular pattern around an old, bright oil lamp whose stained glass shade had stopped spinning. The room smelled a bit off, and its ceiling now had a rust-colored stain where the sleep gas had shot up like a fountain out of the water bucket, but that was all. Their volunteer stood there for a minute and then declared the coast clear. Tem and the Investigators swept into the room and took control of the gangsters' weapons, while Jimmy, Mandy and their assigned Investigator lookout stayed outside guarding Wickersham and the precious glowing flask of Franconium hydrate. The leader of the Investigators seemed stunned by the strange turn after turn the events of the day had taken.

"Are, ah, all of the incidents the Secret Service deals with like this one?" Wickersham asked.

Jimmy shook his head.

"Tem decided we ought to take it easy today," he said.

Mandy scolded Jimmy not to try getting away with making Wickersham lose his grip on the flask, but he noticed she was smiling just a little as she did.

The next hour passed in a bit of a busy blur for Secret Service Agent James Ulysses Gordon. There was the spectacle of Tem hauling the unconscious gangster chief out of the room wearing the same pair of handcuffs that the gang had used on Tem. Mandy definitely smiled at that. Jimmy didn't witness the gun battle that took place downstairs as his brother-in-law and the team of Investigators he took with him dealt with the pair of gangster-guards blocking access to the front of the Federal Building, and another one at the rear entrance, but he could tell from the sounds it was over quick. After that followed the incredible confusion and crowd of policemen and real security guards that swept in from the Court sections, the noise and consternation as the surviving criminals were hauled away to jail. With Mr. Wickersham and reinforcements now escorting the Franconium hydrate to a more secured section of the building where it could be kept locked up under legitimate armed guard, Jimmy and his sister had another urgent task to do. They made sure the T. M. of Steel 1 and T. M. of Steel 2 boxes were very carefully repacked, and with the help of some of the rescued Investigators, loaded along with the Wests' other possessions back onto the horse cart, safe from any more prying eyes.

"The lamp stays?" Jimmy dared to whisper hopefully.

"The lamp stays," Mandy sighed. "For now."

Jimmy didn't have to ask what the 'for now' meant. After seeing what that old lamp could do to an entire group of people all at once, he'd never be tempted to think of it as a plaything or casual experiment.

By the time Tem and the Investigators finished wrapping up preliminary explanations for other officials in the Federal Building and rejoined them by the horse cart, Baccarat and Diamond were stamping their hooves with impatience and Jimmy almost wished he could do likewise. What a day. He was exhausted. They were all exhausted. Again! Heck, they could have almost died. He'd even thought his sister was dying. Thank heavens he'd been wrong about that! By the time they got this load of stuff back to the Wanderer II and stowed away, they might as well spend the night sleeping back on board the train. Tem and Mandy apparently thought so too. No going out on the town after all this – Tem had brought yet another box back to the cart with him. Provisions for the weary, hungry conquering heroes, he explained, obligingly fetched for them by one of the Court clerk-assistants.

"We can wait to eat most of it back on the train," Tem grinned, reaching into the box and pulling out a cardboard carton. "But we'd better hurry up and devour the ice cream here before it melts."

Ice cream!

Jimmy felt a sudden, renewed burst of energy at the sound of the magic words and dived for that carton so fast he almost startled the horses. Although they each took a portion, Tem and Mandy seemed perfectly willing to leave the lions' share of the pre-dinner dessert to Jimmy. Well, that made sense – he was a growing b-, uh, man, almost.

"Not exactly dinner at the Au Boeuf Bistro," Tem sighed to Mandy. "But I'm glad you're feeling better. I'll still be all ears to get the full story about that."

Jimmy felt his built-in mushy stuff detector going off and made it his business to concentrate on the ice cream as his sister and brother-in-law started wrapping each other in a hug, which looked extra-weird given the men's suit Mandy was still wearing.

"We can always go out to dinner tomorrow night," she said. "Would that be all right?"

"Fine by me, Mrs. West," Tem answered. "If, uh, you don't mind being seen in public with the weaker sex, that is?"

Oh, brother . . . .

"Mr. West," Mandy laughed, "I think I shall manage . . . ."