sked. "Salt?"

"I don't know if they eat," he said. "Can't you get it through your
thick skull, man, that these things are alien? Completely alien? How
do I know?"

"Well you must know some things after five years of study. You must
have observed them. They must get food somehow, they must sleep and
wake, they must procreate. You must have observed something."

"I've observed the process of procreation," he answered cautiously.

"Well fine, then," I said. "That's what's going to concern Aunt Mattie
the most."

"Here's something that may help you understand them," he said, and I
felt a bit of the sardonic in his voice, a grimness. "When that one
visited me inside here," he said. "I took him into my office, so I
could photograph him better with all the equipment. I was explaining
everything, not knowing how much he understood. I happened to pick up
a cigarette and a lighter. Soon as I flipped the lighter on, he shot
up a tentacle and took it out of my hand. I let him keep it, of
course. Next day, when I went outside, everyone of them, as far as I
could see in the distance, had a lighter, exactly like the one I'd
given him. Furthermore, in a chlorinated atmosphere, without oxygen,
those lighters burned normally. Does that help you to understand them
better?" he asked with no attempt to hide the heavy irony.

I didn't have a chance to answer because we both heard a crunching in
the salt behind us. We turned about and there was Aunt Mattie and her
two committee women behind her also now in dark glasses. I waited
until the ladies had come up to us, then I waved my arm grandly at the
scene beyond the plastic.

"Behold the natives in all their nakedness, Aunt Mattie," I said.
Then, to soften the blow it must have been, "I'm afraid somebody was
pulling your leg when they reported it to the D.T.'s."

Miss Point gasped audibly.

Mrs. Waddle said, "Shocking!"

I couldn't tell whether it was the sight of the natives, or my remark
which indicated I knew they had legs to pull.

For the first time in my life I saw uncertainty in Aunt Mattie's eyes
as she looked, startled, at me, and then at Johnny. Then her chin
squared, her back straightened still more, the shelf of her bosom
firmed.

"It really won't be too much of a problem, girls," she said. "Actually
simpler than some we've solved. Take a square of cloth, cut a hole in
the center for that headlike pouch to come through where its eye is,
put in a draw string to cinc