," he said loudly, "I am happy to inform you that all your fears
about Tickler are so much thistledown. My word on it. There's nothing
to them at all. Pooh-Bah's precis, which he's just given to me, proves
it."

"Look," Gusterson said solemnly, "there's one thing I want you to do.
Purely to humor an old friend. But I want you to do it. _Read that
memo yourself._"

"Certainly I will, Gussy," Fay continued in the same ebullient tones.
"I'll read it--" he twitched and his smile disappeared--"a little
later."

"Sure," Gusterson said dully, holding his hand to his stomach. "And
now if you don't mind, Fay, I'm goin' home. I feel just a bit sick.
Maybe the ozone and the other additives in your shelter air are too
heady for me. It's been years since I tramped through a pine forest."

"But Gussy! You've hardly got here. You haven't even sat down. Have
another martini. Have a seltzer pill. Have a whiff of oxy. Have a--"

"No, Fay, I'm going home right away. I'll think about the job offer.
_Remember to read that memo._"

"I will, Gussy, I certainly will. You know your way? The button takes
you through the wall. 'By, now."

He sat down abruptly and looked away. Gusterson pushed through the
swinging door. He tensed himself for the step across onto the
slowly-moving reverse ribbon. Then on a impulse he pushed ajar the
swinging door and looked back inside.

Fay was sitting as he'd left him, apparently lost in listless
brooding. On his shoulder Pooh-Bah was rapidly crossing and uncrossing
its little metal arms, tearing the memo to smaller and smaller shreds.
It let the scraps drift slowly toward the floor and oddly writhed its
three-elbowed left arm ... and then Gusterson knew from whom, or
rather from what, Fay had copied his new shrug.

VII

When Gusterson got home toward the end of the second dog watch, he
slipped aside from Daisy's questions and set the children laughing
with a graphic enactment of his slidestanding technique and a story
about getting his head caught in a thinking box built for a midget
physicist. After supper he played with Imogene, Iago and Claudius
until it was their bedtime and thereafter was unusually attentive to
Daisy, admiring her fading green stripes, though he did spend a while
in the next apartment, where they stored their outdoor camping
equipment.

But the next morning he announced to the children that it was a
holiday--the Feast of St. Gusterson--and then took Daisy into the
be