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                              PIPE DREAM

                            BY FRITZ LEIBER

                _Simon Grue found a two-inch mermaid in
                his bathtub. It had arms, hips, a finny
                tail, and (here the real trouble began)
                 a face that reminded him irresistibly
                 of Grushenka Stulnikov-Gurevich...._

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
             Worlds of If Science Fiction, February 1959.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


It wasn't until the mermaid turned up in his bathtub that Simon Grue
seriously began to wonder what the Russians were doing on the roof next
door.

The old house next door together with its spacious tarpapered roof,
which held a sort of pent-shack, a cylindrical old water 