Oh, you poor little darling!"

"Gladys!" the President said sharply.

There were frismil nuts at Mrs. Purrington's cocktail party and vilbar
and even slipnis broogs ... all imported at fabulous expense, Narli
knew, but then this was a government affair and expense means nothing to
a government since, as far as it is concerned, money grows on taxpayers.
Some of the native foods proved surprisingly palatable, too--pate de
foie gras and champagne and little puff pastries full of delightful
surprises. Narli was afraid he was making a zloogle of himself. However,
he thought, trying not to catch sight of his own portly person in the
mirrors that walled the room, the lean days were just ahead.

Besides, what could he do when everyone insisted on pressing food on
him? "Try this, Professor Gzann." "Do try that, Professor Gzann."
("Doesn't he look cunning in his little dress suit?") They crowded
around him. The women cooed, the men beamed, and Narli ate. He would be
glad when he could detach himself from all this cloying diplomacy and
get back to the healthy rancor of the classroom.

* * * * *

At school, the odor of chalk dust, ink and rotting apple cores was
enough like its Saturnian equivalent to make Narli feel at home
immediately. The students would dislike him on sight, he knew. It is in
the nature of the young to be hostile toward whatever is strange and
alien. They would despise him and jeer at him, and he, in his turn,
would give them long, involved homework assignments and such difficult
examinations that they would fail....

Narli waddled briskly up to his desk which had, he saw, been scaled down
to Saturnian size, whereas he had envisioned himself struggling
triumphantly with ordinary Earth-sized, furniture. But the atmosphere
was as hot and sticky and intolerable as he had expected. Panting as
unobtrusively as possible, he rapped with his pointer. "Attention,
students!"

Now should come the derisive babble ... but there was a respectful
silence, broken suddenly by a shrill feminine whisper of, "Oooo, he's so
adorable!" followed by the harsh, "Shhh, Ava! You'll embarrass the poor
little thing."

Narli's face swelled. "I am your new professor of Saturnian Studies.
Saturn, as you probably know, is a major planet. It is much larger and
more important than Earth, which is only a minor planet."

The students obediently took this down in their notebooks. They
carefully took down ev