mouth, licked his lips, and forgot all his joy at meeting
an old school mate. His two subordinates who had remained standing
just out of earshot, as if recognizing a crisis now, stepped briskly
up to his sides.

Aunt Mattie's two committee women, as if to match phalanx with
phalanx, came through the door and started down the steps behind her.
I stepped to one side as the two forces met face to face on the
crunching salt that covered the ground. It might look like a Christmas
scene, but under Capella's rays it was blazing hot, and I found myself
in sympathy with the men's open necked shirts and brief shorts. Still,
they should have known better than to dress like that. Somebody in the
State Department had goofed.

Aunt Mattie and her two committee women were dressed conservatively in
something that might have resembled an English Colonel's wife's idea
of the correct tweeds to wear on a cold, foggy night. If they were
already sweltering beneath these coverings, as I was beginning to in
my lighter suit, they were too ladylike to show it. Their acid glance
at the men's attire showed what they thought of the informality of
dress in which they'd been received. But they were too ladylike to
comment. After that first pointed look at bare knees, they had no need
of it.

"This is the official attire prescribed for us by the State
Department," Johnny said, a little anxiously, I thought. It was hardly
the formal speech of welcome he, as planet administrator, must have
prepared.

"I have no doubt of it," Aunt Mattie said, and her tone told them what
she thought of the State Department under the present administration.
"You would hardly have met ladies in such--ah--otherwise." I could see
that she was making a mental note to speak to the State Department
about it.

"Make a note," she said and turned to Miss Point. "I will speak to the
State Department. How can one expect natives to ... if our own
representatives don't ... etc., etc."

"May I show you to your quarters, ma'am?" Johnny asked humbly. "No
doubt you will wish to freshen up, or...."

Miss Point blushed furiously.

"We are already quite fresh, young man," Aunt Mattie said firmly.

I happened to know that Aunt Mattie didn't like to browbeat people,
not at all. It would all have been so much more pleasant, gracious, if
they'd been brought up to know right from wrong. But what parents and
schools had failed to do, she must correct as her duty. I thought it
about t