rcass. Not another word, not a sound, not a ghoulish
syllable from your ineffective vocabulary. Out of my presence before I
lose my temper. Get down to whatever smokefilled and tastelessly
decorated room that committee is meeting in and do not leave while it is
in session, neither to eat, sleep, nor move those bowels whose
possession I gravely doubt. You hear me, Weener?"

For some reason the committee was not attempting to get the story of the
grass in chronological order. When I arrived, the six distinguished
gentlemen were trying to find out all about the crudeoil poured,
apparently without effect, in what now seemed so long ago, but which
actually had been less than two weeks before.

Flanked on either side by his colleagues, the little black plug of his
hearingaid sticking out like a misplaced unicorn's horn, was the
chairman, Senator Jones, his looseskinned old fingers resting lightly on
the bright table, the nails square and ridged, the flesh brownspotted.
He adjusted a pair of goldrimmed spectacles, quickly found the
improvement in his vision unpleasant, and rumbled, "What did it cost the
taxpayers?"

On the stand, the chief of police was settled in great discomfort, so
far forward on the rounded edge of his chair that his balance was a
source of fascinated speculation to the gallery. He squirmed a perilous
half inch forward, but before he had time to reply, old Judge Robinson
of the State Supreme Court, who scorned any palliation of his deafness
such as Senator Jones condescended to, cupped his left ear with his hand
and shrieked, "Ay? Ay? What's that? Speak up, can't you? Don't sit there
mumbling."

Assemblyman Brown, head of the legislature's antiracketeering committee,
intense concentration expressed in the forward push of his vigorous
shoulders and the creased lines on his youthful forehead, asked if it
were not true that the oil had been held up by a union jurisdictional
dispute? There was a spattering of applause from the listeners at this
adroit question and one man in the back of the room cried "Sha--" and
then sat down quickly.

Attorney General Smith wanted to know just who had ordered the oil in
the first place and whether the propertyowners had given their consent
to its application. The attorney general's square face, softened and
rounded by fat, shone on the wriggling chief like a klieglight; his
lips, irresistibly suggesting twin slices of underdone steak, parting
into a pleasant smile when