* "The Belt of Power" not only keeps a guy's pants up, it transforms even a nobody into a raving egomaniac.

* "The New Man" retires to a monastery where he so mortifies his flesh in penance for his sins that his body dematerializes & he becomes pure spirit. Wanting to show his ex-wives how he's changed, he inadvertently scares them to death.

* "Two Fragments"--l. Describes a monster made of strange materials including head of steam, glass chin, feet of clay & manitas de plata. 2. Is about a child who can't keep his mouth shut. His insides fall out of his mouth when he bends over & it takes him a long time to swallow them again.

* "The Green Boy" is persecuted because his skin is like bark & his blood is green. The townsfolk try to lynch him, but the tree they choose to hang him from turns out to be the Green Boy's father. Boy & father transform the jeering mob into trees.

* "The Dog With a Conscience"--Marc reveres humans. Especially his mistress who is blind. Marc is her seeing-eye dog. He stumbles on a plot being hatched by two criminals to poison the city's water supply with a chemical that will make the population go blind. A flea in Marc's ear begins to speak, the dog mistakes it for his conscience.

* "The Black Dog"--Winston Churchill referred to his fits of depression as "The Black Dog. …