THE SCHIMMELHORN FILE: MEMOIRS OF A DIRTY OLD GENIUS

Copyright © 1979 by Reginald Bretnor All rights reserved.

"The Gnurrs Come From the Voodvork Out," copyright 1950 by Fantasy House, Inc. First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Winter-Spring 1950.

"Little Anton," copyright 1950 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc. First publication: New Tales of Space and Time, edited by Raymond J. Healy, 1950.

"The Ladies of Beetlegoose Nine," copyright 1976 by Mercury Press, Inc. First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1976.

"Count von Schimmelhorn and the Time-Pony," copyright 1974 by Mercury Press, Inc. First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1974.

"Papa Schimmelhorn's Yang," copyright 1978 by Mercury Press, Inc. First publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1978.

"Papa Schimmelhorn and the S.O.D.O.M. Serum," copyright 1973 by Thomas N. Scortia and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. First publication: Two Views of Wonder, edited by Thomas N. Scortia and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, 1973.

An ACE Book

Cover art by Vincent Di Fate

First Ace printing: February 1979

Printed in U.S.A.

To Dirty Old Men everywhere (and to Rosalie, who puts up with one of them.)

CONTENTS

THE GNURRS COME FROM THE VOODVORK OUT

LITTLE ANTON

THE LADIES OF BEETLEGOOSE NINE

COUNT VON SCHIMMELHORN AND THE TIME-PONY

PAPA SCHIMMELHORN'S YANG

PAPA SCHIMMELHORN AND THE S.O.D.O.M. SERUM

The Gnurrs Come From the Voodvork Out

When Papa Schimmelhorn heard about the war with Bobovia, he bought a box-lunch, wrapped his secret weapon in brown paper, and took the first bus straight to Washington. He showed up at the main gate of the Secret Weapons Bureau shortly before midday, complete with box-lunch, beard, and bassoon.

That's right — bassoon. He had unwrapped his secret weapon. It looked like a bassoon. The difference didn't show.

Corporal Jerry Colliver, on duty at the gate, didn't know there was a difference. All he knew was that the Secret Weapons Bureau was a mock-up, put there to keep the crackpots out of everybody's hair, and that it was a lousy detail, and that there was the whole afternoon to go before his date with Katie.

"Goot morning, soldier boy!" bellowed Papa Schimmelhorn.

Corporal Colliver winked at the two PFC's who were sunning themselves with him on the guardhouse steps. "Come back Chris'mus, Santa," he said. "We're closed for inventory."

"No!" Papa Schimmelhorn was annoyed. "I cannot stay so long from vork. Also, I have here a zecret veapon. Ledt me in!"

The Corporal shrugged. Orders were orders. Crazy or not, you had to let 'em in. He reached back and pressed the loony-button, to alert the psycho's just in case. Then, keys jingling, he. walked up to the gate. "A secret weapon, huh?" he said, unlocking it. "Guess you'll have the war all won and over in a week."

"A veek?" Papa Schimmelhorn roared with laughter. "Soldier boy, you vait! It is ofer in two days! I am a chenius!"

As he stepped through, Corporal Colliver remembered regulations and asked him sternly if he had any explosives on or about his person.

"Ho-ho-ho! It iss nodt necessary to haff ex-blosives to vin a var! Zo all right, you search me!"

The corporal searched him. He searched the box-lunch, which contained one deviled egg, two pressed-ham sandwiches, and an apple. He examined the bassoon, shaking it and peering down it to make sure that it was empty.

"Okay, Pop," he said, when he had finished. "You can go on in. But you better leave your flute here."

"It iss nodt a fludt," Papa Schimmelhorn corrected him. "It iss a gnurrpfeife. And I must take it because it iss my zecret veapon."

The corporal, who had been looking forward to an hour or so of trying to tootle "Comin' Through The Rye," shrugged philosophically. "Barney," he said to one of the PFCs, "take this guy to Section Seven."

As the soldier went off with Papa Schimmelhorn in tow, he pressed the loony-button twice more just for luck. "Don't it beat all," he remarked.

Corporal Colliver, of course, didn't know that Papa Schimmelhorn had spoken only gospel truth. He didn't know that Papa Schimmelhorn really was a genius, or that the gnurrs would end the war in two days, or that Papa Schimmelhorn would win it.

At ten minutes past one, Colonel Powhattan Fairfax Pollard was still mercifully unaware of Papa Schimmelhorn's existence.

Colonel Pollard was long and lean and leathery. He wore Peal boots, spurs, and one of those plum-colored shirts which had been fashionable at Fort Huachuca in the twenties. He did not believe in secret weapons. He didn't even believe in atomic bombs and tanks, recoilless rifles and attack aviation. He believed in horses.

The Pentagon had called him back out of retirement to command the Secret Weapons Bureau, and he had been the right man for the job. In the four months of his tenure, only one inventor — a fellow with singularly sound ideas regarding pack-saddles — had been sent on to higher echelons.

Colonel Pollard was seated at his desk, dictating to his blonde WAC secretary from an open copy of Major-General Wardrop's "Modern Pigsticking." He was accumulating material for a work of his own, to be entitled "Sword and Lance in Future Warfare." Now, in the middle of a quotation outlining the virtues of the Bengal spear, he broke off abruptly. "Miss Hooper!" he announced. "A thought has occurred to me!"

Katie Hooper sniffed. If he had to be formal, why couldn't he just say sergeant? Other senior officers had always addressed her as my dear or sweetheart, at least when they were alone. Miss Hooper, indeed! She sniffed again, and said, "Yessir."

Colonel Pollard snorted, apparently to clear his mind. "I can state it as a principle," he began, "that the mania for these so-called scientific weapons is a grave menace to the security of the United States. Flying in the face of the immutable science of war, we are building one unproved weapon after another, counter-weapons against these weapons, counter-counter-weapons, and — and so on. Armed to the teeth with theories and delusions, we soon may stand impotent — Did you hear me, Miss Hooper? Impotent —"

Miss Hooper snickered and said, "Yessir."

"— against the onrush of some Attila," shouted the Colonel, "some modern Genghis Khan, as yet unborn, who will sweep away our tinkering technicians like chaff, and carve his empire with cavalry — with horse and sword!"

"Yessir," said his secretary.

"Today," the Colonel thundered, "we have no cavalry! A million mounted moujiks could —"

But the world was not destined to find out just what a million mounted moujiks could or could not do. The door burst open. From the outer office, there came a short, sharp squeal. A plump young officer catapulted across the room, braked to a halt before the Colonel's desk, saluted wildly.

"Oooh!" gasped Katie Hooper, staring with vast blue eyes.

The Colonel's face turned suddenly to stone.

And the young officer caught his breath long enough to cry, "My God, it — it's happened, sir!"

Lieutenant Hanson was no combat soldier; he was a scientist. He had made no appointment. He had entered without knocking, in a most un-military manner. And — And —

"MISTER!" roared Colonel Pollard. "WHERE ARE YOUR TROUSERS?"

For Lieutenant Hanson obviously was wearing none. Nor was he wearing socks or shoes. And the tattered tails of his shirt barely concealed his shredded shorts.

"SPEAK UP, DAMMIT!"

Vacantly, the Lieutenant glanced at his lower limbs and back again. He began to tremble. "They — they ate them!" he blurted. "That's what I'm trying to tell you! Lord knows how he does it! He's about eighty, and he's a — a foreman in a cuckoo-clock factory! But it's the perfect weapon! And it works, it works, it works!" He laughed hysterically. "The gnurrs come from the voodvork out!" he sang, clapping his hands.

Here Colonel Pollard rose from his chair, vaulted his desk, and tried to calm Lieutenant Hanson by shaking him vigorously. "Disgraceful!" he shouted in his ear. "Turn your back!" he ordered the blushing Katie Hooper. "NONSENSE!" he bellowed when the Lieutenant tried to chatter something about gnurrs.

And, "Vot iss nonzense, soldier boy?" enquired Papa Schimmelhorn from the doorway.

The Lieutenant pointed unsteadily at Colonel Pollard. "Gnurrs iss nonzense!" he snickered. "He says so."

"Ha!" Papa Schimmelhorn glared. "I show you, soldier boy!"

The Colonel erupted. "Soldier boy? SOLDIER BOY? Stand at attention when I speak to you! ATTENTION, DAMN YOU"

Papa Schimmelhorn, of course, paid no attention whatsoever. He raised his secret weapon to his lips, and the first bars of "Come To The Church In The Wildwood" moaned around the room.

"Mister Hanson!" raged the Colonel. "Arrest that man! Take that thing away from him! I'll prefer charges! I'll —"

At this point, the gnurrs came from the voodvork out.

It isn't easy to describe a gnurr. Can you imagine a mouse-colored, mouse-sized critter shaped like a wild boar, but sort of shimmery? With thumbs fore and aft, and a pink, naked tail, and yellow eyes several sizes too large? And with three sets of sharp teeth in its face? You can? Well, that's about it — except that nobody has ever seen a gnurr. They don't come that way. When the gnurrs come from the voodvork out, they come all over — like lemmings, only more so — millions and millions of them.

And they come eating.

The gnurrs came from the voodvork out just as Papa Schimmelhorn reached "... the church in the vale." They covered half the floor, and ate up half the carpet, before he finished "No scene is so dear to my childhood." Then they advanced on Colonel Pollard.

Mounting his desk, the Colonel started slashing around with his riding crop. Katie Hooper climbed a filing case, hoisted her skirt, and screamed. Lieutenant Hanson, secure in his nether nakedness, held his ground and guffawed insubordinately.

Papa Schimmelhorn stopped tootling to shout, "Don'dt vorry, soldier boy!" He started in again, playing something quite unrecognizable — something that didn't sound like a tune at all.

Instantly, the gnurrs halted. They looked over their shoulders apprehensively. They swallowed the remains of the Colonel's chair cushion, shimmered brightly, made a queasy sort of creaking sound, and turning tail, vanished into the wainscoting.

Papa Schimmelhorn stared at the Colonel's boots, which were surprisingly intact, and muttered, "Hmm-m, zo!" He leered appreciatively at Katie Hooper, who promptly dropped her skirt. He thumped himself on the chest, and announced, "They are vunderful, my gnurrs!"

"Wh—?" The Colonel showed evidences of profound psychic trauma. "Where did they go?"

"Vere they came from," replied Papa Schimmelhorn.

"Where's that?"

"It iss yesterday!"

"That — that's absurd!" The Colonel stumbled down and fell into his chair. "They weren't here yesterday!"

Papa Schimmelhorn regarded him pityingly. "Of courze nodt! They vere nodt here yesterday because yesterday vas then today. They are here yesterday, ven yesterday iss yesterday already. It iss different."

Colonel Pollard cast an appealing glance at Lieutenant Hanson.

"Perhaps I can explain, sir," said the Lieutenant, whose nervous system seemingly had benefited by the second visit of the gnurrs. "May I make my report?"

"Yes, yes, certainly." Colonel Pollard clutched gladly at the straw.

Lieutenant Hanson pulled up a chair, and — as Papa Schimmelhorn walked over to flirt with Katie — he began to talk in a low and very serious voice.

"It's absolutely incredible," he said. "All the routine tests show that he's not much smarter than a high grade moron. He quit school when he was eleven, served his apprenticeship, and worked as a clockmaker till he was in his fifties. After that, he was a janitor in the Geneva Institute of Higher Physics until just a few years ago. Then he came to America and got his present job. But it's the Geneva business that's important. They've been concentrating on extensions of Einstein's and Minkowski's work. He must have overheard a lot of it."

"But if he's a moron —" the Colonel had heard of Einstein, and knew that he was very deep indeed "— what good would it do him?"

"That's just the point, sir! He's stupid on the conscious level, but subconsciously he's a genius. Somehow, part of his mind absorbed the stuff, integrated it, and came up with this bassoon thing. It's got a weird little L-shaped crystal in it, impinging on the reed, and when you blow the crystal vibrates. We don't know why it works — but it sure does!"

"You mean the — uh — the fourth dimension?"

"Precisely. Though we've left yesterday behind, the gnurrs have not. They're there now. When a day becomes our yesterday, it becomes their today."

"But — but how does he get rid of them?"

"He says he plays the same tune backwards, and reverses the effect."

Papa Schimmelhorn, who had been encouraging Katie Hooper to feel his biceps, turned around. "You vait!" he laughed uproariously. "Soon, vith my gnurrpfeife I broadcast to the enemy! Ve vin the var!"

The colonel shied. "The thing's untried, un-proven! It — er — requires further study — field service — acid test."

"We haven't time, sir. We'd lose the element of surprise!"

"We will make a regular report through channels," declared the Colonel. "It's a damn' machine, isn't it? They're unreliable. Always have been. It would be contrary to the principles of war."

And then Lieutenant Hanson had an inspiration. "But, sir," he argued, "we won't be fighting with the gnurrpfeife! The gnurrs will be our real weapon, and they're not machines — they're animals! The greatest generals used animals in war! The gnurrs aren't interested in living creatures, but they'll devour just about anything else — wool, cotton, leather, even plastics — and their numbers are simply astronomical. If I were you, I'd get through to the Secretary right away!"

For an instant, the Colonel hesitated — but only for an instant. "Hanson," he said decisively, "you've got a point there — a very sound point!"

And he reached for the telephone.

It took less than twenty-four hours to organize Operation Gnurr. The Secretary of Defense, after conferring with the President and the General Staff, personally rushed over to direct preliminary tests of Papa Schimmelhorn's secret weapon. By nightfall, it was known that the gnurrs could:

a.       Completely blanket everything within two hundred yards of the gnurrpfeife in less than twenty seconds.

b.       Strip an entire company of infantry, supported by chemical weapons, to the skin in one minute and eighteen seconds,

c.       Ingest the contents of five Quartermaster warehouses in just over two and a half minutes, and,

d.       Come from the voodvork out when the gnurrpfeife was played over a carefully shielded short wave system.

It had also become apparent that there were only three effective ways to kill a gnurr — by shooting him to death, drenching him with liquid fire, or dropping an atomic bomb on him — and that there were entirely too many gnurrs for any of these methods to be worth a hoot.

By morning, Colonel Powhattan Fairfax Pollard — because he was the only senior officer who had ever seen a gnurr, and because animals were known to be right up his alley — had been made a lieutenant-general and given command of the operation. Lieutenant Hanson, as his aide, had suddenly found himself a major. Corporal Colliver had become a master-sergeant, presumably for being there when the manna fell. And Katie Hooper had had a brief but strenuous date with Papa Schimmelhorn.

Nobody was satisfied. Katie complained that Papa Schimmelhorn and his gnurrs had the same idea in mind, only his technique was different. Jerry Colliver, who had been dating Katie regularly, griped that the old buzzard with the muscles had sent his Hooper rating down to zero. Major Hanson had awakened to the possibility of somebody besides the enemy tuning in on the Papa Schimmelhorn Hour.

Even General Pollard was distressed —

"I could overlook everything, Hanson," he said sourly, "except his calling me 'soldier boy.' I won't stand for it! The science of war cannot tolerate indiscipline. I spoke to him about it, and all he said was, 'It iss all right, soldier boy. You can call me Papa.'"

Major Hanson disciplined his face, and said, "Well, why not call him Papa, sir? After all, it's just such human touches as these that make history."

"Ah, yes — History." The General paused reflectively. "Hmm, perhaps so, perhaps so. They always called Napoleon 'the little Corporal'."

"The thing that really bothers me, General, is how we're going to get through without our own people listening in. I guess they must've worked out something on it, or they wouldn't have scheduled the — the offensive for five o'clock. That's only four hours off."

"Now that you mention it," said Generl Pollard, coming out of his reverie, "a memorandum did come through — Oh, Miss Hooper, bring me that memo from G-1, will you? — Thank you. Here it is. It seems that they have decided to — er — scramble the broadcast."

"Scramble it, sir?"

"Yes, yes. And I've issued operational orders accordingly. You see, Intelligence reported several weeks ago that the enemy knows how to unscramble anything we transmit that way. When Mr. — ah, 'Papa' Schimmelhorn goes on the air, we will scramble him, but we will not transmit the code key to our own people. It is assumed that from five to fifteen enemy monitors will hear him. His playing of the tune will constitute Phase One. When it is over, the microphones will be switched off, and he will play it backwards. That will be Phase Two, to dispose of such gnurrs as appear locally."

"Seems sound enough." Major Hanson frowned. "And it's pretty smart, if everything goes right. But what if it doesn't? Hadn't we better have an ace up our sleeve?"

He frowned again. Then, as the General didn't seem to have any ideas on the subject, he went about his duties. He made a final inspection of the special sound-proof room in which Papa Schimmelhorn would tootle. He allocated its observation windows — one to the President, the Secretary, and General Pollard; one to the Chief of Staff, with his sea and air counterparts; another to Intelligence liaison; and the last to the functioning staff of Operation Gnurr, himself included. At ten minutes to five, when everything was ready, he was still worrying.

"Look here," he whispered to Papa Schimmelhorn, as he escorted him to the fateful door. "What are we going to do if your gnurrs really get loose here? You couldn't play them back into the voodvork in a month of Sundays!"

"Don'dt vorry, soldier boy!" Papa Schimmelhorn gave him a resounding slap on the back. "I haff yet vun trick I do nodt tell you!"

And with that vague assurance, he closed the door behind him.

"Ready?" called General Pollard tensely, at one minute to five.

"Ready!" echoed Sergeant Colliver.

The tension mounted. The seconds ticked away. The General's hand reached for a sabre-hilt that wasn't there. At five exactly —

"CHARGE!" the General cried.

A red light flared above the microphones.

And Papa Schimmelhorn started tootling "Come To The Church In The Wildwood."

The gnurrs, of course, came from the voodvork out.

The gnurrs came from the voodvork out, and a hungry gleam was in their yellow eyes. They carpeted the floor. They started piling up. They surged against the massive legs of Papa Schimmelhorn, their tiny electric-razor sets of teeth going like all get out. His trousers vanished underneath the flood—his checkered coat, his tie, his collar, the fringes of his beard. And Papa Schimmelhorn, all undismayed, lifted his big bassoon out of gnurrs' way and tootled on. "Come, come, come, come. Come to the church in the vildvood ..."

Of course, Major Hanson couldn't hear the gnurrpfeife — but he had sung the song in Sunday school, and now the words resounded in his brain. Verse after verse, chorus after chorus — The awful thought struck him that Papa Schimmelhorn would be overwhelmed, sucked under, drowned in gnurrs...

And then he heard the voice of General Pollard, no longer steady —

"R-ready, Phase Two?"

"R-readyf" replied Sergeant Colliver.

A green light flashed in front of Papa Schimmelhorn.

For a moment, nothing changed. Then the gnurrs hesitated. Apprehensively, they glanced over their hairy shoulders. They shimmered. They started to recede. Back, back, back they flowed, leaving Papa Schimmelhorn alone, triumphant, and naked as a jay-bird.

The door was opened, and he emerged — to be congratulated and reclothed, and (much to Sergeant Colliver's annoyance) to turn down a White House dinner invitation in favor of a date with Katie. The active phases of Operation Gnurr were over.

In far-away Bobovia, however, chaos reigned. Later it was learned that eleven inquisitive enemy monitors had unscrambled the tootle of the gnurrpfeife, and that tidal waves of gnurrs had inundated the enemy's eleven major cities. By seven-fifteen, except for a few hysterical outlying stations, Bobovia was off the air. By eight, Bobovian military activity had ceased in every theatre. At twenty after ten, an astounded Press learned that the surrender of Bobovia could be expected momentarily... The President had received a message from the Bobovian Marshalissimo, asking permission to fly to Washington with his Chief of Staff, the members of his cabinet, and several relatives. And would his Excellency the President — the Marshalissimo had radioed — be so good as to have someone meet them at the airport with nineteen pairs of American trousers, new or used?

VE Day wasn't in it. Neither was VJ Day. As soon as the papers hit the streets — BOBOVIA SURRENDERS! — ATOMIC MICE DEVOUR ENEMY! — SWISS GENIUS' STRATEGY WINS WAR! — the crowds went wild. From Maine to Florida, from California to Cape Cod, the lights went on, sirens and bells and auto horns resounded through the night, millions of throats were hoarse from singing "Come To The Church In The Wildwood."

Next day, after massed television cameras had let the entire nation in on the the formal signing of the surrender pact, General Pollard and Papa Schimmelhorn were honored at an impressive public ceremony.

Papa Schimmelhorn received a vote of thanks from both houses of Congress. He was awarded academic honors by Harvard, Princeton, M.I.T., and a number of denominational colleges down in Texas. He spoke briefly about cuckoo-clocks, the gnurrs, and Katie Hooper.

General Pollard, having been presented with a variety of domestic and foreign decorations, spoke at some length on the use of animals in future warfare. He pointed out that the horse, of all animals, was best suited to normal military purposes, and he discussed in detail many of the battles and campaigns in which it had been tried and proven. He was just starting in on swords and lances when the abrupt arrival of Major Hanson cut short the whole affair.

Hanson raced up with sirens screaming. He left his escort of MPs and ran across the platform. Pale and panting, he reached the President — and, though he tried to whisper, his voice was loud enough to reach the General's ear. "The — the gnurrs!" he choked. "They're in Los Angeles!"

Instantly, the General rose to the occasion. "Attention, please!" he shouted at the microphones. "This ceremony is now over. You may consider yourselves — er — ah — DISMISSED!"

Before his audience could react, he had joined the knot of men around the President, and Hanson was briefing them on what had happened. "It was a research unit! They'd worked out a descrambler — new stuff — better than the enemy's. They didn't know. Tried it out on Papa here. Cut a record. Played it back today! Los Angeles is overrun!"

There were long seconds of despairing silence. Then, "Gentlemen," said the President quietly, "we're in the same boat as Bobovia."

The General groaned.

But Papa Schimmelhorn, to everyone's surprise,  laughed boisterously.  "Oh-ho-ho-ho! Don'dt vorry, soldier boy! Ve haff them only in Los Angeles, vhere it does nodt matter! Also, I haff a trick I did hodt tell!" He winked a cunning wink. "Iss vun thing frightens gnurrs —"

"In God's name — what?"exclaimed the Secretary.

"Horses," said Papa Schimmelhorn. "It iss der shmell!"

"Horses? Did you say horses?" The General pawed the ground. His eyes flashed fire. "CAVALRY!" he thundered. "We must have CAVALRY!"

No time was wasted. Within the hour, Lieutenant-General Powhattan Fairfax Pollard, the only senior cavalry officer who knew anything about gnurrs, was promoted to the rank of General of the Armies, and given supreme command. Major Hanson became a brigadier, a change of status which left him slightly dazed. Sergeant Colliver received his warrant.

General Pollard took immediate and decisive action. The entire Air Force budget for the year was commandeered. Anything even remotely resembling a horse, saddle, bridle, or bale of hay was shipped westward in requisitioned trains and trucks. Former cavalry officers and non-coms, ordered to instant duty regardless of age and wear-and-tear, were flown by disgruntled pilots to assembly points in Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona. Anybody and everybody who had ever so much as seen a horse was drafted into service. Mexico sent over several regiments on a lend-lease basis.

The Press had a field day. NUDE HOLLYWOOD STARS FIGHT GNURRS! headlined many a full front page of photographs. Time devoted a special issue to General of the Armies Pollard, Jeb Stuart, Marshal Ney, Belisarius, the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, and AR 50-45, School Of The Soldier Mounted Without Arms. The National Enquirer reported, on reliable authority, that the ghost of General Custer had been observed entering the Officers' Club at Fort Riley, Kansas.

On the sixth day, General Pollard had ready in the field the largest cavalry force in all recorded history. Its discipline and appearance left much to be desired. Its horsemanship was, to say the very least, uneven. Still, its morale was high, and —

"Never again," declared the General to correspondents who interviewed him at his headquarters in Phoenix, "must we let politicians and long-haired theorists persuade us to abandon the time-tried principles of war, and trust our national destiny to — to gadgets."

Drawing his sabre, the General indicated his operations map. "Our strategy is simple," he announced. "The gnurr forces have by-passed the Mohave Desert in the south, and are invading Arizona. In Nevada, they have concentrated against Reno and Virginia City. Their main offensive, however, appears to be aimed at the Oregon border. As you know, I have more than two million mounted men at my disposal — some three hundred divisions. In one hour, they will move forward. We will force the gnurrs to retreat in three main groups — in the south, in the center, in the north. Then, when the terrain they hold has been sufficiently restricted, Papa — er, that is, Mister — Schimmelhorn will play his instrument over mobile public address systems."

With that, the General indicated that the interview was at an end, and, mounting a splendid bay gelding presented to him by the citizens of Louisville, rode off to emplane for the theatre of operations.

Needless to say, his conduct of the War Against The Gnurrs showed the highest degree of initiative and energy, and a perfect grasp of the immutable principles of strategy and tactics. Even though certain envious elements in the Pentagon afterwards referred to the campaign as "Polly's Round-up," the fact remained that he was able to achieve total victory in five weeks — months before Bobovia even thought of promising its Five Year Plan for re-trousering its population. Inexorably, the terror-stricken gnurrs were driven back. Their queasy creaking could be heard for miles. At night, their shimmering lighted up the sky. In the south, where their deployment had been confined by deserts, three tootlings in reverse sufficed to bring about their downfall. In the center, where the action was heavier than anticipated, seventeen were needed. In the north, a dozen were required to do the trick. In each instance, the sound was carried over an area of several hundred square miles by huge loudspeaker units mounted in escort wagons or carried in pack. Innumerable cases of personal heroism were recorded — and Jerry Colliver, after having four pairs of breeches shot out from under him, was personally commissioned in the field by General Pollard.

Naturally, a few gnurrs made their escape — but the felines of the state, who had been mewing with frustration, made short work of them. As for the numerous gay instances of indiscipline which occurred as the victorious troops passed through the quite literally denuded towns, these were soon forgiven and forgotten by the joyous populace.

Secretly, to avoid the rough enthusiasm of admiring throngs, General Pollard and Papa Schimmelhorn flew back to Washington — and three full regiments with drawn sabres were needed to clear a way for them. Finally, though, they reached the Pentagon. They walked toward the General's office arm in arm, and then at the door they paused for a moment or two.

"Papa," said General Pollard, pointing at the gnurrpfeife with awe, "we have made History! And, by God, we'll make more of it!"

"Ja!" said Papa Schimmelhorn, with an enormous wink. "But tonight, soldier boy, ve vill make vhoopee! I haff a date with Katie. For you she has a girl friend."

General Pollard hesitated. "Wouldn't it — wouldn't it be bad for — er — discipline?"

"Don'dt vorry, soldier boy! Ve don'dt tell anybody!" laughed Papa Schimmelhorn — and threw the door open.

There stood the General's desk. There, at its side, stood Brigadier-General Hanson, looking worried. Against one wall stood Lieutenant Jerry Colliver, smirking loathsomely, with a possessive arm around Katie Hooper's waist. And in the General's chair sat a very stiff old lady, in a very stiff black dress, tapping a very stiff umbrella on the blotting pad.

As soon as she saw Papa Schimmelhorn, she stopped tapping and pointed the umbrella at him. "So!" she hissed. "You think you get avay? To spoil Cousin August's beaudtiful bassoon, and play vith mices, and passes at female soldier-girls to make?"

She turned to Katie Hooper, and they exchanged a feminine glance of triumph and understanding. "Iss lucky that you phone, so I find out," she said. "You are nice girl. You can see under sheep's clothings."

She rose. As Katie blushed, she strode across the room, and grabbed the gnurrpfeife from Papa Schimmelhorn. Before anyone could stop her, she stripped it of its reed — and ground the reshaped crystal underfoot. "Now," she exclaimed, "iss no more gnurrs and people-vithout-trousers-monkeyshines!"

While General Pollard stared in blank amazement and Jerry Colliver snickered gloatingly, she took poor Papa Schimmelhorn firmly by the ear. "So ve go home!" she ordered, steering him for the door. "Vere iss no soldier girls, und der house needs painting!"

Looking crestfallen, Papa Schimmelhorn went without resistance. "Gootbye!" he called unhappily. "I must go home vith Mama."

But as he passed by General Pollard, he winked his usual wink. "Don'dt vorry, soldier boy!" he whispered. "I get avay again — I am a chenius!"

LITTLE ANTON

The day before Little Anton was due to arrive in the United States the Board of Directors of the Luedesing Time and Instrument Corporation of New Haven met in special session to determine the fate of his great-uncle, Papa Schimmelhorn.

Through gold-rimmed spectacles, old Heinrich Luedesing glared at his son Woodrow, at the Board, and at Captain Perseus Otter, U.S.N. "I haff said vun thousand times," he puffed, "und now I say again — nefer vill I fire Papa Schimmelhorn. He iss a chenius!"

"Now now, Dad," soothed Woodrow Luedesing, forcing his features into their second-best Dale Carnegie smile, "it's just that things have changed. Remember, we aren't simply the old Luedesing cuckoo clock factory any more. We've converted. We've retooled. New capital has come into the firm. We have a contract — the contract — to make those super-secret Wilen scanners for the Navy. It's stuff that takes high-powered scientific knowhow. It can't be handled by a cuckoo clock technology."

Obstinately, old Heinrich shook his head.

"Well, Dad." The smile, slipping out of gear, was instantly replaced by proper filial sympathy and sorrow. "...We didn't want to have to force the issue. But..." Woodrow shrugged, "...you leave us no alternative. After the Captain gives us the Navy point of view, we'll have to call a vote."

Captain Perseus Otter rose, jutting sharply forward as he did so. This accentuated his amazing likeness to Lord Nelson — or rather to a figurehead of Nelson carved by some sculptor of strongly anti-British tendencies. It was an unfortunate singularity, cruelly noticed by a long succession of superior officers and by all the ladies who might have married him. It had turned him into a bitter man.

Captain Otter fixed old Heinrich with the sort of gaze usually reserved for derelicts which refuse to sink. "Mr. Luedesing," he snapped, "eight weeks ago, I approved your promotion of this man Schimmelhorn from foreman to superintendent of production. In my opinion, he was not qualified for the position. He is more than eighty years of age. He left school at eleven. His IQ isn't much higher than a high-grade moron's. His moral character is reprehensible. However, I deferred to your judgement. Here, sir, are the results."

He removed two gadgets from his brief case. "As you are aware, the critical element in the Wilen scanner — the part which enables us to detect every ship and aircraft, friend or foe, within a thousand miles — is Assembly M. It is so secret that none of us knows what it contains, so secret that it must be manufactured entirely by sealed automatic mechanisms. These machines were installed by Schimmelhorn. He alone has been told how they function. All we know," the Captain's voice quivered with righteous wrath, "is that Assembly M is supposed to come out in one piece instead of two — and that there should be no clockwork in it!"

The table buzzed. The gadgets passed from hand to hand — a seamless silver ovoid with six slender porcelain legs, and a toadstool-shaped vacuum tube full of odd bric-a-brac, in the center of which several brass gears were clearly visible.

"I shall summarize," declared Captain Otter. "One, the gears do not belong within the tube. Two, the tube belongs inside the unit, where it is now impossible to put it. Three, we shall have to bring Wilen himself down from M.I.T. to remedy the situation. And four —" As though an unattired mermaid had cut across his bows, he blushed. "— since Thursday, Mr. Luedesing, there have been twenty-eight complaints from female employees. Schimmelhorn is continually molestinig them."

"Papa Schimmelhorn does nodt molest vomen," fumed old Heinrich. "He chust makes passes."

Captain Otter folded his arms. "I shall state the Navy's attitude simply and directly. Mr. Luedesing, Schimmelhorn must go!"

Immediately afterward, by a vote of eight to one, the members of the Board decided to retire Papa Schimmelhorn, complete with gold watch, pension, and signed testimonial. Then, at Woodrow Luedesing's suggestion, they sent for him to tell him the good news.

*        *        *

Papa Schimmelhorn was twice as big as Heinrich Luedesing. He was attired gloriously in hound's-tooth-check trousers, green plaid sports coat, and devastating orange shirt — and on his ruddy cheek, midway between his left eyebrow and his huge white beard, there was a smear of lipstick.

He seated himself casually on a corner of the table, and put an arm around old Heinrich's shoulders. "Alvays, Heinrich, vith such nincompoops you shpend your time. Iss bedter you come vith Papa Schimmelhorn, to see dot new blonde in der shipping office. I tell you —" he pointed at the Captain and favored the Directors with an enormous wink, "— she would make efen dot sailor come to life!"

Captain Perseus Otter fizzed slightly, like something starting to go off. And Woodrow Luedesing, trying to assume a friendly but executive expression, stepped into the breach.

"We've been discussing you, Mr. Schimmelhorn," he purred. "We have been concerned about you — your advanced age, the strain of adjusting yourself to the swift pace of modern industry, the impact of new problems too complex for your simple skills. It is sad but true that sooner or later the torch of progress must be passed on by the failing hands of those who have so bravely carried it. The Luedesing Time and Instrument Corporation, Mr. Schimmelhorn, wants your few remaining years to be happy ones. As General Manager, I —"

There was a cheerful bellow from Papa Schimmelhorn. "Heinrich, such nonsense Voodrow talks! I tell you vot he needs," he raised a ham-like, and by no means failing, hand, "vun goot lesson on der backside. Dot iss enough!"

Woodrow Luedesing, paling slightly, scurried to shelter in Captain Otter's lee. Several directors quickly pushed chairs between themselves and Papa Schimmelhorn.

"Nein, Papa, nein." A tear splashed on old Heinrich's thick mustache. "It iss now too late. You do nodt vork here any more! You haff been retired, vith a pension, und a gold vatch, und maybe a diploma."

"At my recommendation," put in Captain Perseus Otter loftily.

"Ach, zo?" Papa Schimmelhorn didn't seem the least bit stricken. "Heinrich, now ve understand. It iss because of Voodrow, who iss ashamed of cuckoo clocks. It iss alzo —" he looked the Captain up and down, "— because of him. He iss chealous because he cannodt get a girl like oder sailors!"

Two of the directors snickered, and Captain Otter began to fizz again. But old Heinrich was not comforted.

"I haff told them, Papa, that vithoudt you der vorks break down. I haff told them how you haff been a chanitor at der Geneva Institute of der Higher Physics, vhere you listen to der Herr Professors und become a chenius. But der Captain says der dingus iss all wrong..."

Chuckling, Papa Schimmelhorn turned his back on the directors. "You listen, Heinrich. I haff vun improfement made. From these dunderheads I keep it zecret. But, at der Instiute, three veeks I miss because I meet a vidow vith red hair, zo," he tapped his skull. "Something iss nodt in here, und der inzide of der dingus iss shtill oudt. Don'dt vorry, Heinrich, I vill fix. I vish mein old friend Albert, in New Chersey, vas alife. He vas a shmart boy in Schvitzerland — almost, like me, a chenius. Right after I bring Lidtle Anton I vill go to Princeton vhere maybe his friends can help."

From his pocket he took a tinted photograph, showing a plump, slightly cross-eyed infant peering knowingly at a buxom nurse. "Here iss Lidtle Anton,' he exclaimed proudly. "Eighteen pounds vhen he vas born! Und now they are exborting him from Schvitzerland to me and Mama, so he grows up to be a fine man, und nodt like Voodrow."

He rose, bright eyes twinkling at the Board. "Don'dt you be angry vith them, Heinrich. Soon they make a big mess — und then they beg me to come back, und everything iss fixed. Und then," he slapped his mighty chest, "oh, ho-ho-ho! Maybe, if he is goot, I show dot sailor how to catch a girl!"

When Papa Schimmelhorn arrived at Immigration and asked for little Anton Fledermaus, the authorities concerned immediately abandoned a boatload of assorted immigrants to expedite his mission personally.

He noticed nothing unusual about this. Waiting, he flirted with a dark girl from Marrakech and congratulated himself on escaping beyond the reach of Mama Schimmelhorn's steely eye and stiff black umbrella.

Largely on the strength of Little Anton's photograph, he had equipped himself with a mechanical turtle, a gaudy lollipop, and a work involving a character named Willie Wabbit. Therefore he paid no heed when he saw two uniformed attendants gingerly urging forward an overgrown cherub who had suddenly erupted into the most revolting stage of adolescence. This youth wore knickers and a jacket three sizes too tight for him, and carried no luggage except a toothbrush in his breast pocket. The attendants led him up to Papa Schimmelhorn, blurted, "He's all yours," and hastily withdrew.

Taking off his cap respectfully, the youth addressed Papa Schimmelhorn as "dear great-uncle." Then, in a voice alternating between a tortured treble and a bullfrog bass, he made a little speech in German, conveying the best wishes of numerous relatives and promising that he would be a good boy and do what he was told.

"LIDTLE ANTON!" Papa Schimmelhorn released the girl from Marrakech. He embraced the youth exuberantly. He held him at arm's length for a pleased inspection. "Lidtle Anton, how you grow!"

Little Anton retreated out of reach. "Boy-oh-boy!" he said. "Am I glad that's over."

"But — but you shpeak English?"

"Natch," growled Little Anton. "I see the gangster pitchers. That Dutch stuff I gave you was for effect."

"Oh, ho-ho-ho! To think I bring a lollipop und a toy turtle!" Papa Schimmelhorn was convulsed. "Der goot choke iss on me!"

Little Anton peered at the girl. For a moment, his eyes crossed. "Pop," he snickered, "it sure woulda been if I hadn't come along. Well, my stuff's due later — so kiss her goodbye and let's take in a good old U.S. porn flick."

These evidences of precocity delighted Papa Schimmelhorn. He pinched Miss Marrakech, who simpered prettily in Arabic. He took Little Anton fondly by the arm.

"Und now," he said, as they departed, "ve go to Princeton, in New Chersey, vhere there are shmart people who knew my old friend Albert Einshtein. Dot must come first, before efen der mofie show. Und on der vay I tell you all aboudt America —"

At once, he told the story of Cheorge Vashington und der cherry tree — and this led him, naturally, into the subject of his own career. By the time they reached Penn Station — where they paused to reclaim a worn carpetbag and a large shoe box from the checkroom — Little Anton had been made acquainted with the private lives of several festive ladies of Berne, New Haven, and points in between. By the time they reached Jersey, he had been briefed on the necessity for a united male front against Mama Schimmelhorn's domestic tyranny. And, before their train had been ten minutes under way, he had received technical information on the Wilen scanner, the bare, uncensored thought of which would have given Captain Perseus Otter a conniption fit.

He heard all this with half an ear. Occasionally, he rumbled an "uh-huh" or squeaked out a "no kiddin'?" Once, looking at his great-uncle in open admiration,  he exclaimed,  "Yuk-yuk!  When I get to your age, Pop, I wanna be an old goat just like you." But he spent most of his time staring at fellow passengers, usually feminine ones, letting his eyes cross, and making such pithy comments as "woo-woo!" or "phooey."

Finally, though, Papa Schimmelhorn tapped the shoe box resting on his knees, and said, "Zo, Lidtle Anton, dot iss vhy I bring vun dingus only — because it iss zo zecret. It vill do eferything dot I haff told aboudt, alzo anoder trick vhich iss a big surbrise."

Little Anton's eyes widened. Focusing on the shoe box, they crossed slightly. "Yipe!" he remarked. "You got it right here with you, huh?" Then, with evident pleasure, he jerked his thumb over his left shoulder. "Hey, I betcha that's why that little bastard in the corner's been tailing us!" he cried. "I betcha he's a spy."

Papa Schimmelhorn was not just a genius. He was a genius with savoir faire. Turning calmly, he squinted at the undersized, sallow individual three seats behind them. Instantly he was amused. "Dumkopff" he guffawed. "Chust because he follows, it does nodt mean der lidtle bastard iss a shpy. Haff you nodt heard about der FBI? Dot's vot he iss. It iss security."

"Nuts to you, Pop," retorted Little Anton loudly. "I seen G-men in pitchers. They don't look like what you catch in rat traps."

"Ho-ho!" Papa Schimmelhorn slapped his thigh; his merriment resounded through the car. "Der FBI iss clefer, Lidtle Anton. Dot iss a disguise!"

By now, all eyes were on them, and comments were being freely made on every hand. This seemed to embarrass the little man. For a few seconds he wiggled in his seat. Then, pulling his pork-pie hat down over his ears, he scuttled out and vanished.

Afer that, the tumult gradually subsided, and the other passengers, losing interest, went back to their newspapers and naps.

Papa Schimmelhorn patted Little Anton on the head. "You are a foolish boy," he told him. "Vhen you are older iss time maybe to vorry aboudt shpies. Iss bedter now you leaf it all to me.

"Fooey," muttered Little Anton. "I guess you think you're the only genius in the family. Well, Pop, don't say I didn't tell you." And he withdrew into himself, to stare at his feet and pick moodily at an occasional pimple.

Papa Schimmelhorn did not chide him for his rudeness. Suddenly he sat bolt upright, eyes flashing, whiskers twitching. A tall brunette was coming down the aisle toward them.

She was a very well-turned brunette, a bit like those who used to undulate through the earlier efforts of Cecil B. DeMille, but with modern upholstery. She wore something spectacularly black, dangled long scarlet earrings, and carried a neat overnight bag. As she came slithering up to them, her slanting eyes seemed to search each face longingly. Then they found Papa Schimmelhorn's and rested there. Passing by, she gave him a lingering, torrid smile.

Papa Schimmelhorn took a deep breath and looked at Little Anton. Little Anton uncrossed his eyes, drooled, and said, "Yum-yum." Momentarily, at least, rapport was re-established.

The brunette took the seat once occupied by the small, sallow man. Her perfume drifted forward to them powerfully.

It made the hairs in Papa Schimmelhorn's big ears quiver. "Lidtle Anton," he said decisively. "I haff ideas ..."

"Me too!" croaked Little Anton.

"... und vun idea iss dot she iss going to Atlantic City, for der beaudty condests. Und anoder iss dot Albert's friends are maybe busy vith der grafity, und die black holes, und theories I cannot undershtand. Iss plenty time. Ve, you und I, take maybe a vacation by der sea. Maybe ve go to this Atlantic City, vhere are such inderesting people. You can learn all aboudt America ..."

The Lorelei Hotel was neither the finest nor the most fashionable in Atlantic City. Its days of glory had departed with the bloomer bathing suit, and now it catered to retired clergymen, lieutenant colonels' widows, and people in modest circumstances with four or more children.

Papa Schimmelhorn and Little Anton, falling into none of these categories, were welcomed coldly by the management. A grim Nantucket clerk inspected them, demanded payment in advance, and had them whisked so quickly through the lobby's purple plush and potted palms that they failed to see the brunette and the small man in the pork-pie hat registering in their wake.

Papa Schimmelhorn surveyed their room with satisfaction. Appropriating the bed nearest the window, he unpacked his carpetbag, taking from it a gay aloha shirt, a pair of sandals, a suit of flowered puce pajamas which he suspended from the gilded gas-and-electric chandelier, and a cuckoo clock. This last, with the aid of a large nail and a shoe heel, he hung upon the wall.

"Chust like at home," he sighed—and waited for Little Anton to say something complimentary.

But there was no reply. Instead, behind him, he heard a sharp, metallic click. He turned—and gasped.

Kneeling on the floor, Little Anton was unlocking the first of three enormous suitcases.

"Vhere —?" exclaimed Papa Schimmelhorn. "Vhere did you get those?"

"Switzerland," said Little Anton placidly.

"But — Gott im Himmel — How?"

"I wanna be a smuggler. I'm practicing. When I'm real good, I'll sneak Chicanos in over the border. But this'll do for now. You're a genius, Pop; you can figger the technique out in no time."

He opened the first suitcase. "Watches," he stated smugly. "Two hunerd of 'em, duty free." He opened up the second. "Algerian post cards," he announced. "They oughta go like hot cakes."

Papa Schimmelhorn took one quick look. "No vunder they exborted you from Schvitzerland," he muttered, turning crimson.

"My clothes and stuff," finished Little Anton, indicating the third suitcase. "They'll keep till later."

But Papa Schimmelhorn said nothing more. He sat down on his bed, and, while Little Anton busily took inventory, he ransacked his mind for scraps of information about his grand-nephew. Once in a while, he recalled, Mitzi Fledermaus had mentioned her small son in letters to Mama. Little Anton had been an imaginative child, dreaming funny dreams, claiming to have playmates whom he alone could see, disappearing for hours on end mysteriously. And hadn't there been some odd business about shoplifting, which nobody could prove?

Papa Schimmelhorn's brain whirred and clicked, considering all these matters together with such other data as the lad's uncanny mastery of colloquial English. He came to a conclusion.

"Mein Lidtle Anton," he began sweetly. "I haff been thinking. Vhere iss vun chenius in der family iss maybe more . . :"

Little Anton was stuffing packages of post cards in his pockets. "Now you're catching on," he grunted without pausing.

"... und right avay, vhen you arrife, I say, 'Our Lidtle Anton iss zo shmart, a child protigy. Someday he iss a chenius chust like me.'"

"Pop," said Little Anton, "you don't know the half of it."

Papa Schimmelhorn's voice became deeply serious. "Ve cheniuses must shtick together, Lidtle Anton. I vill teach you eferything I know, und you —" he rubbed his hands, "— vill show me how iss vorked der lidtle suidcase trick."

"Yuk-yuk!" crowed Little Anton. "You sure got a corny line, Pop." He moved toward the door.

"Vait,  Lidtle Anton!" cried Papa Schimmelhorn. "Vhere are you going? Iss nine o'clock."

"I'm gonna peddle feelthy peectures," replied Little Anton, patting his bulging pockets. "This looks like just the place, and I need lettuce. And don't you worry none about the cops. Now everybody's liberated, and anyhow they can't touch us wholesalers." He turned the knob. For a fraction of a second he crossed his eyes. "Wanna know something about that mouse aboard the train, Pop?" he asked. "She's got a cuckoo tattoed on her tummy!"

Abruptly the door closed behind him, and he was gone — leaving his great-uncle with an imagination nicely titillated, and an even tougher problem on his mind.

"Vould you belief it?" marveled Papa Schim-melhorn. "A cuckoo on der tummy. How beaudtiful!"

Like a caged tom-tiger, he started pacing up and down. How did the boy know? And how could that know-how be pried out of him? There — there had been something — something in one of Mitzi Fledermaus' letters, about how little Anton, then aged four, had been reproved for prattling of a corner around which no one else could see. Perhaps —

Papa Schimmelhorn stopped pacing. Changing to sandals and aloha shirt, he stretched his huge frame on the bed in order to attack the problem comfortably. Presently, the cuckoo on the wall popped in and out and sang ten times, marking the hour...

And, almost at once, there came a tiny knocking on the door.

"Ho-ho?" boomed Papa Schimmelhorn. "Lidtle Anton, you are back zo soon?"

The door opened. But Little Anton did not enter. Instead, there stood the brunette. She was clad in cocktail pajamas of black and red, vaguely Chinese in motif, fitting her like a snake's new skin.

Her eyes went wide as she saw Papa Schimmelhorn. Her hand flew to her lips. "Oh!" she cried out. "I — I must have the wrong room!"

Papa Schimmelhorn bounded to his feet. His beard almost swept the floor as he bowed. He assured her gallantly that, from his point of view, quite the reverse was true.

Suddenly she smiled. "Why, I know you. But — but the conductor told me you were going to Princeton. You're the professor who was on the train."

Papa Schimmelhorn hung his head modestly. "I am nodt a professor. I am chust a chenius."

"A — a genius! Oooh!" Somehow the door seemed to close itself behind her. "Then you know all about science, don't you? I mean about geometry and physics and — well, everything?" She clasped her hands together. "Please, may I come and talk to you sometime, when — when you aren't busy inventing your new theories?"

Her voice was deep, disturbing — rather like Edith Piaf with whipped cream. It set the follicles of Papa Schimmelhorn's beard to tingling. "I haff chust finished der qvota for this veek!" he roared gleefully. "Ve can talk now —"

He came toward her, eyes focused on her midriff. He took her gently but firmly by the elbow.

"Oh, Professor," she breathed, "I'm just so lucky."

Deciding to be subtle, he led her to a chair. "Der name iss Schimmelhorn," he cooed, "but you can call me Papa."

"My name is Sonya — er, that is, Sonya Lou."

"I call you Lulu. Dot iss easier. Don'dt vorry, I show you a goot time. I call der bellboy right avay for popcorn."

"I just adore popcorn," said Sonya Lou.

He rang for room service. He sat down on the chair's arm beside her. He let his right hand wander to her waist.

She looked up at him. "Now you shall tell me about science," she whispered fervently.

Papa Schimmelhorn's left hand moved to join his right. Its index finger hovered over her bright pajama jacket's second button. "Ve shtart," he told her, "by talking aboudt birds. I luff der lidtle birds — zo cute! Shparrows und pipshqveaks und robin-redchests. But ezpecially —" he gave the button an experimental tweak, "— dear lidtle cuckoos."

Ferdinand Wilen's arrival in New Haven coincided closely with Papa Schimmelhorn's departure — and, at first, these two events seemed to do wonders for Captain Perseus Otter. He now jutted forward jauntily, as though, after a perilous and weary voyage, he had been dry-docked and given a fresh coat of paint. His likeness to the Hero of Trafalgar became even more striking than before. He even made an effort to resume his fruitless courtship of a lush divorcee named Mrs. Bucklebank.

But two days passed — and three — and four. And on the fifth day Captain Otter found himself once more in the presence of old Heinrich Luedesing and of the Board. Only now they were reinforced. Wilen sat there, with a nervous tic and bags under his eyes. So did a vice admiral, bluff-bowed and broad in the beam. And two rear admirals. And a big, ruddy officer whose fourth row of gold braid was topped off with a loop.

The three admirals, obviously, were giving Captain Otter the deep freeze. The other officer, just as obviously, was trying to conceal what amounted to an utter fascination.

"Dr. Wilen," rapped the vice admiral, "please make your report."

Wilen's thin hands wrestled with each other on the table. "I've checked everything," he said hysterically. "I've gone over it four times — every servo-mechanism, every relay, each power supply and part and process — everything. And all I've found is a little waste space, and four terminals that don't lead anywhere." He gnawed his nails. "It ought to work, really it ought to! And — and it still turns out my tubes with c-c-clockwork in them, no matter what I do! And they're still outside when they should be in. Oh, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

He collapsed sobbing; and the vice admiral turned to Otter.

"Well?" he said.

Captain Otter shivered and said nothing.

"Speak up, Otter. Did you or did you not recommend the retirement of this — er, this Papa Schimmelhorn?"

"Yes, sir. But ..."

"Do you realize, Otter, that the Wilen scanner is a project on which we are engaged jointly with the British? As you have perhaps heard, they are our allies. They have gone to the trouble, Otter, to send their largest carrier over here — H.M.S. Impressive, commanded by this gentleman." He inclined his head toward the gold braid with the loops. "Captain Sir Sebastian Cobble, C.B. She's in New York harbor, equipped with everything except Assembly M. Assembly M must be installed aboard her in two days. Forty-eight hours, Otter. See to it. I'm holding you responsible."

There was a sigh, possibly of relief, from Woodrow Luedesing.

"I was given to understand, Admiral —" Captain Perseus Otter was very pale, "— that my duties here were advisory. I have done what I could. I have even sent a man to search for Schimmelhorn. Beyond that..."

"Come, come, Otter! It's scarcely our tradition to push off our responsibilities, especially on civilians. Do you mean to tell me that since you came here you have been nothing but a figurehead?"

There was a sharp crack as Captain Sir Sebastian Cobble, C.B. bit his pipestem through.

"Certainly not, sir," sputtered Captain Otter.

"Well, then, you should have no trouble. Find this Schimmelhorn, have him fix this Assembly M or whatever it is, and get it aboard Impressive right away."

While the vice admiral was saying this, a secretary had entered and whispered something in old Heinrich's ear. "Now, I am sorry," he announced unhappily. "Papa Schimmelhorn ve haff nodt found, but Mama Schimmelhorn iss here. If you vant, I bring her in."

"By all means," nodded the vice admiral. "She may have information."

Old Heinrich left the room and returned immediately escorting a very straight old lady in stiff black taffeta. She was armed with an umbrella, and there was fire in her eye.

"Chentlemen," said Heinrich Luedesing, "I like you to meet Mama Schimmelhorn."

The admirals rose.

Mama Schimmelhorn surveyed them. "Gobs," she remarked disapprovingly. "Drinking und chasing girls und making noise at night."

There was a display of self-restraint. "Ma-am —" the vice admiral bowed. "I am delighted. I am sure that you can be of help to us. We must find your husband..."

"Ha!" The sharp ferrule of Mama Schimmelhorn's umbrella tapped the floor. "Dot no-goot! Fife days he iss avay — und here iss vot I get!" Opening a black, beaded reticule, she fished out a post card, and passed it to him.

It was not one of Little Anton's. It was a picture of the Taj Mahal. On one of the windows, a big X had been scrawled. And, on the reverse, there was a message which, roughly translated, read: Haffing shvell time. Vish you vas here. X iss our room. Luff und kisses, your goot husband, Papa. (Also Lidtle Anton.)

"But he forgets der postmark!" cried Mama Schimmelhorn. "Atlantic City! Chust vait!"

The vice admiral thanked her. He promised to deliver Papa Schimmelhorn into her fond custody. Then he turned again to Captain Perseus Otter.

"Well, we know where he is," he declared. "Take my advice, Otter. If it's agreeable to Sir Sebastian here, he can take you aboard Impressive, and put to sea. Contact the shore patrol at Atlantic City. They'll help you pick up Schimmelhorn. I hear he has one of the assemblies with him, so that's all settled. Now do you see how simple it all is?"

"Dot's vot I told you." Old Heinrich smiled and nodded. "Don'dt vorry. Papa Schimmelhorn vill fix."

"I shall sail at four, sir," said Captain Sir Sebastian Cobble, eyeing Captain Otter dubiously.

But Dr. Ferdinand Wilen said never a word. Staring intently at a point in space, he was busily vibrating his lower lip with a forefinger.

While the inventor of Assembly M was puzzling himself into this tizzy at New Haven, Papa Schimmelhorn and Little Anton were by no means idle in Atlantic City.

Day by day, Little Anton's smuggled stock of watches and Algerian post cards dwindled, while his newly acquired roll of bills fattened correspondingly.

Day after day, too, Papa Schimmelhorn pursued Sonya Lou, or Lulu. He tempted her, successively, with feats of strength, accounts of his past conquests, light refreshments, and burning words of love. He even, on two occasions, gave her flowers.

And nothing worked, not even the desolate (and absolutely false) complaint that Mama Schimmelhorn did not understand him. So far as he was concerned, the cuckoo tattooed on her tummy remained a mystery.

He took it in his stride, confiding cheerfully in Little Anton late at night.

"You listen, Lidtle Anton," he would say. "vith dot girl Lulu iss something wrong up-shtairs. Imachine! Always she talks of science, science, science."

"Eight hunerd and sixty, and eighty, and a hunerd—makes nine hunerd," Little Anton would reply, counting his ill-gotten gains. "Not bad for three days' work, huh, Pop?

"Maybe I pinch a lidtle — she says, 'No, no. Tell me aboudt der relatifity.' Maybe I bite her ear — she says, 'Don'dt think of me. I chust adore der dingus in der box — vot iss der princible?' Ach, Lidtle Anton, such a voman! It iss nodt natural."

Then, "Ya know what?" Little Anton would remark. "I betcha she's a spy."

And so it went until the afternoon before Captain Otter's painful experience with the admirals. Little Anton had sold out all his post cards except an assorted package of three dozen, and he was taking a well-earned rest in the lobby of the Lorelei. Deep in a chair behind a potted palm, eyes crossed luxuriously, he was examining the more interesting features of three plump young matrons gossiping some yards away.

Suddenly, almost in his ear, he heard a voice. It was low and vibrant, and he recognized it instantly as Sonya Lou's.

"But, Pedro," she was protesting, "I have been using Technique Forty-four, just as the Handbook says. Can I help it if the old fool won't respond? All he wants to do is pinch and feel and take my clothes off. My God, I'm black and blue all over!"

A man's voice answered her. "You must be patient, Sonya. You must remember all about detente. It is the correct technique."

Very quietly, Little Anton swiveled round. Forgetting the young matrons, he peeked through palm leaves — and saw a pork-pie hat.

The man's voice hardened. "You know the penalty for failure, do you not?"

"Of course I do." She laughed nervously. "I'm not giving up — I have another date with him tonight. But — oh, why couldn't it be that stupid boy of his instead? I could use Technique One — you know, in bed with nothing on — the shoe box in advance — and you could come and rescue me in time." She groaned. "At least I wouldn't have to wrestle for a week."

For a few moments Little Anton's face assumed the pale cast of thought. Then, silently, he took the post cards in his hand and pushed them through the leaves and dropped them in Pedro's coat pocket.

Presently, when the little man left the hotel alone, he followed him.

That night Sonya Lou did not keep her date with  Papa Schimmelhorn.  He waited twenty minutes, thirty, thirty-five. He paced the floor. Finally, calling her room and finding she was out, he shrugged his shoulders philosophically. "Iss plenty fishes in der sea," he told himself. "Der cuckoo iss tatooed, zo it vill vait."

With that, he thought of a manicurist whom he had carefully cultivated as a spare, poured out half the bag of hard rock candy which he had purchased that afternoon as bait, and, humming cheerily, went off to her apartment.

Her almost certain lack of avian adornment did not spoil his evening in the least — and he was in a mellow mood when he came back to the hotel at four A.M. He smiled tolerantly at Little Anton's untouched bed, tumbled into his own, and slept the sleep of conscious virtue until noon.

On awakening, his first thought was of Sonya Lou. Picking up the phone, he shouted. "Goot morning!" to the clerk. "Iss Papa Schimmelhorn. I vant to shpeak to Lulu!"

"Miss Mikvik checked out two hours ago," said the flat Nantucket voice clammily. "The management would like to know when you intend to follow her example."

"Vot?" The cuckoo on the abdomen — so beautiful! — took wing and disappeared, perhaps forever. "Vhere did she go?"

"No forwarding address," snapped the receiver. It clicked offensively, and all was still.

Papa Schimmelhorn replaced it on the hook. He understood immediately that his magnetic personality had been too much for Lulu. It had aroused hidden passions of which she was afraid, and she had run away. Pityingly, he hoped the poor girl would never realize what she had missed.

He sat up and stretched, intending to give Little Anton a useful pointer about Life and women — and found that Little Anton was still among the missing. "Ach, veil," he thought, "boys vill be boys. He iss vith some high school girl — necking und petting like der lidtle dofes — zo cute!"

Full of sentiment, he dressed, brushed out his beard, and went to lunch. En route, a headline caught his eye:

RED DIPLOMAT ARRESTED HERE Obscene Pictures 'Imperialistic Plot' Declares Third World Attache.

He looked more closely:

July 12: [ he read ] Pedro Gonzalez Popopoff, who identified himself as a 'Central American' cultural attache, is currently in Altantic City's jail charged with possession of three dozen pornographic post cards described by arresting officers as "the hottest we've seen yet. Man, you couldn't even sell them in an adult bookstore."

Popopoff was seized yesterday on a tip furnished by an unidentified teenager whom he had allegedly approached as a potential customer. He was...

The news story went on to state that all Central American embassies had denied any knowledge of Gonzalez Popopoff: the Russians had stated flatly that he was an agent of the CIA; the Red Chinese had identified him positively as a lackey of Moscow revisionists, the Gang of Four, and a huge Taiwanese conglomerate.

"Tsk-tsk, how inderesting," said Papa Schim-melhorn, as he continued on his way, to spend the balance of the afternoon along the boardwalk and the beach, surrounded by a giggling coterie in negligible bikinis, each one of whom he graciously permitted to pull his whiskers, feel his gigantic biceps, and steal a kiss.

It was not until after supper, when he was returning dreamily to the hotel, that other matters forced themselves upon his mind. A gray jeep whipped around a corner, slammed on its brakes, and skidded alongside. Its pair of shore patrolmen regarded him with some astonishment.

"I reckon you're Pappy Schimmelhorn?" one of them said.

"Der vun und only, Chunior — dot's me!"

"Hop aboard, Pappy. You're comin' for a ride. The Navy wants you bad."

"Go avay!" laughed Papa Schimmelhorn, stepping back a pace. "Der funny pants I do nodt like. Alzo I am too old."

"Look, Pappy." The jeep began to snort impatiently. "We ain't recruitin' you. There's big brass in a hurry back at your hotel. Now tuck the spinach in and come along."

"Ach, dot iss different." At once, Papa Schimmelhorn guessed that Captain Otter was in need of help. "He vants to ask me how to catch his girl. Of course I come!"

He vaulted in. The jeep took off. Beard streaming in the wind, he was whisked back to the Lorelei, where the shore patrolmen accompanied him directly to his door.

He entered with a flourish. "Veil, sailor boy," he roared, spying Captain Perseus Otter, "now you haff goot sense! Soon, vhen I teach you, der vomen vill run after you like flies." His gaze moved to the right. "Und you bring a friend!" he cried delightedly. "A cholly Chack Tar! Goot, ve get him a date too." He looked between them. "Oh, ho-ho-ho! Und here is Lidtle Anton, der naughdy boy, who iss oudt all night."

Captain Otter rose. A mild case of seasickness had made him rather green around the gills. He looked as though he had spent some years under a moldering bowsprit in the Sargasso Sea.

"Mr. Schimmelhorn." He tried heroically to smile. "This is Captain Sir Sebastian Cobble, commanding Her Majesty's Ship Impressive, now lying-to offshore."

Papa Schimmelhorn and Captain Cobble shook hands, expressing mutual pleasure.

"Clever lad you have here," said Sir Sebastian, gesturing at Little Anton with his pipe. "Frightfully well informed. We've been discussing smuggling — fascinating — interested in it since I was a boy."

"He iss precocious," bragged Papa Schimmelhorn. "It iss in der family. Myzelf —"

Hastily, Captain Perseus Otter intervened. "I fear that I have failed to make our purpose clear. It is not — er, recreation. Certain — um — difficulties have come up in the plant, and — well, the long and short of it, ha-ha, is that we now want you to fix the assembly you have with you as soon as possible, and install it aboard Impressive right away."

"Ha, zo der vorks iss fouled?" laughed Papa Schimmelhorn. "I told you zo. Veil, don'dt you vorry, sailor boy. Now ve go shtrait to Princeton. It only takes maybe a veek for Albert's friends to fix."

"A week?" Captain Otter thought dismally of his number on the promotion list. "It's an emergency. You'll have to do it by tomorrow noon. Please, Mr. Schimmelhorn."

"Dot iss imbossible. Der inzide iss shtill oudt. I get der dingus, und I show you vhy —"

Little Anton shifted uncomfortably. "Hey, Pop..."

"Shh, Lidtle Anton. Vhen I am busy, do not inderrupt." Papa Schimmelhorn was on his knees, searching beneath his bed. "How stranche! I hide der shoe box here before I go, because it iss a zecret. Now vhere iss?"

"Pop."

"Shudt up! Maybe iss on der oder side..."

"Pop." Little Anton said, "you might as well get up. Your shoe box isn't there."

There was a dreadful hush.

"Where d'ya think I been all night? That Sonya Lou of yours was after it — she was a spy. I peddled it to her..." Little Anton smirked and licked his chops. "But not for money, Pop. Uh-uh."

"VOT?" bellowed Papa Schimmelhorn. "Vot haff you done?"

"Incredible!" Captain Cobble cried, ruining another pipestem permanently.

"Treason! Cold-blooded treason!" gasped Captain Perseus Otter, turning an even more livid color than before.

"Aw, keep yer britches on." Little Anton remained unperturbed. "I sealed that shoe box good. I betcha she's halfway to Europe with it now. But they won't find no dingus in it. What kinda sucker do you think I am?" He pointed at the bare nail protruding from the wall. "Anything secret about a cuckoo clock?" he said.

Captain Otter wiped the cold sweat from his brow. His momentary vision of Boards of Inquiry and of Naval Courts started to dissolve. "You — you mean?" he stuttered. "It's still here?"

"Right in Pop's carpetbag." Little Anton swelled his chest. "I guess I'm pretty sharp, huh, Cap?"

Papa Schimmelhorn reached in the carpetbag. He found the silver ovoid instantly. He reached in again, and felt around — and brought his hand out empty. "But here iss only half." He frowned. "Vhere iss der rest of it?"

"Oh, that.' Little Anton smiled superciliously. "I fixed it, genius. I put it back inside where it belongs."

"Nonzense!" exclaimed Papa Schimmelhorn.

"Okay, you don't believe me." Sneering, Little Anton held out a hand. "Gimme."

He took Assembly M. His eyes crossed quite appallingly. His fingers made one quick and curious movement...

And there was the tube, complete with clockwork, out again.

"Betcha you don't know how it's done!" he challenged them.

But Captain Perseus Otter was not interested. "My boy," he said, not unemotionally, "these little technical details can wait. You have done splendidly. I personally will mention you in my report. But now we have important work to do."

He tapped his watch. "We'd best be under way."

And, as they headed for the sea and H.M.S. Impressive, he told himself that now, at least, their troubles were all over.

He had forgotten the brass gears in the tube.

Thirty-six hours after Papa Schimmelhorn and Little Anton put to sea, the Chief of Naval Operations flew in from Washington. Accompanied by two harried persons from the State Department, he stormed into the office of that vice admiral who had made life so difficult for Captain Otter, and, in the most unfriendly tone imaginable, said, "Well?"

The vice admiral shuddered and said nothing.

"Speak up, Marlinson. You are aware that the British are our allies, are you not? You understand that, like most seafaring people, they much prefer to keep their naval craft afloat? And you admit, I trust, that it is to our interest to help them do so?"

"Y-yes, sir — but..."

"May I remind you, Marlinson, that we've had Otters in the Navy since the Revolution? Surely you have heard of Commodore Columbus Otter, who sailed his squadron into the Sus-quehannah River and disappeared, a feat no other officer has duplicated? And of Commander Leviathan Otter, who went down with the monitor Mugwump in Charleston harbor in 1863, quite certain that he was putting in to Portland, Maine? And of Lieutenant Ahab Otter, who so clearly demonstrated the impracticability of diving submarines with their hatches open?" He raised his voice, "And knowing all this, Marlinson," he roared, "you ordered Captain Perseus Otter ABOARD A SHIP!"

Shamefacedly, the vice admiral hung his head.

"And not just any ship. Fully aware of his remarkable appearance, you ordered him aboard a British ship..."

The Chief of Naval Operations continued for several minutes more, deploring the effete age which prohibited such picturesque and useful customs as keelhauling and flogging through the fleet. Then —

"Marlinson," he said, "H.M.S. Impressive picked up your people on Wednesday, at 22:04. At 23:18, we received a strange radiogram. It read, SCANNER WORKS STOP PUTTING TO SEA FOR MORE EXTENSIVE TESTS STOP ARRIVE NEW YORK NOON FRIDAY STOP PAPA SENDS LOVE TO MAMA STOP (SIGNED) COBBLE. There has been nothing since. Every available air and surface craft has searched without success. We can only conclude that H.M.S. Impressive has gone down with all hands. There will be grave international repercussions, Marlinson."

"I can just hear the Times editorials now."

"Just thank God Churchill's dead!" sighed the second, somberly.

The Chief of Naval Operations rose to go. "We've kept this secret, Admiral Marlinson, so far. But after noon today it must come out. It's your responsibility. Therefore you will accompany the British naval attache when he goes out to meet their ship. When she does not show up, you will explain why she isn't there. After that, you can report to me in person."

They left; and, half an hour later, the vice admiral dismally stepped aboard the burnished barge which, he was sure, fate had chosen to witness one of the closing scenes of his career. The British naval attache was there, attended by two aides, sundry officers of his own staff, and a pert ensign in the Waves. So were Heinrich Luedesing and Woodrow Luedesing and Ferdinand Wilen, somewhat calmer now.

Disciplining his voice, he greeted them. The barge cast off; and, all the way down the bay, he prayed devoutly for a miracle. But, when minutes ahead of time the point of rendezvous was reached, the sea was bare.

The naval attache searched the horizon with binoculars. "Strange," he said, "very strange. She really ought to be in sight by now."

Everyone else made similar remarks.

Only Vice Admiral Marlinson was silent. The seconds passed. High noon came nearer quite remorselessly. Anxiety appeared on every face but Heinrich Luedesing's.

Finally, when only fifteen seconds still remained, the Admiral braced himself. He drew the naval attache aside. "It is my painful duty..." he began. He stopped to wipe his brow. "It is my duty —"

He had no cnance to finish. There was a shrill squeal from the little Wave, a general cry —

"By God, there she is!" exclaimed the attache, pointing excitedly to port.

And there, scarcely a cablelength away, long and gray and grim, lay H.M.S. Impressive. Her crew was mustered on the flight deck for review. Her band was striking up 'God Save the Queen.' And, over all, a foghorn voice was shouting, "ACH, HEINRICHI HERE I AM! YOO-HOO! BLOW DER MAN DOWN! SHIP AHOY!"

Within two minutes, the dazed vice admiral was being piped aboard. In less than three, he had met Papa Schimmelhorn and Little Anton, both wearing jaunty sailor hats with H.M.S. Impressive on their ribbons. In five, he had recovered to the point where, drawing Captain Perseus Otter slightly to one side, he could demand, "Where in the name of all that's holy HAVE YOU BEEN?"

Captain Otter was unshaven. He wore his cap at an angle which, on any junior officer, he would strongly have disapproved. But there was a new light in his eye.

"At sea, sir!" said he.

"Indeed?" barked the vice admiral, warming up. "Are you aware, sir, that every blessed plane and ship and State Department clerk has been searching for you from hell to breakfast since you disappeared?"

Captain Otter smiled. He began to laueh. He held his sides, threw back his head, and whooped.

The admiral's emotional barometer swung sharply over toward apoplexy. "And would you mind informing me just what is so amusing?" he asked dangerously.

But it was Papa Schimmelhorn who answered him. In the most friendly fashion, he slapped him on the back. "Ho-ho-ho-ho!"he boomed, "Of courze you could nodt find us, sailor boy. It iss der Schimmelhorn Effect! Der lidtle vheels inzide der tube go round. Und right avay ve are infisible!"

"In — invisible?"

"Precisely, sir," said Captain Perseus Otter, making his comeback with surprising speed. "And completely so — to the human eye, to cameras, even to radar. However, it is my duty to request that you, sir, ask for no further information." He smiled serenely. "The Schimmelhorn Effect is highly secret."

"But —" The admiral started to protest. He got no further.

"Eeeek!" cried the little Wave, behind him.

He whirled. The Wave was blushing furiously. She was pointing an outraged finger at Captain Cobble. "Make — make him stop doing that!' she squealed.

Captain Cobble chuckled. His eyes uncrossed themselves.

"Here, here! What's going on?" snapped the vice admiral.

For just an instant Captain Sir Sebastian Cobble looked round self-consciously. Then:

"Going on, sir?" He winked at Little Anton. "Ah — just a bit more of this scientific know-how. The — the Fledermaus Effect."

It would be profitless to elaborate at too great a length on subsequent events aboard H.M.S. Impressive. The vice admiral delivered a short and stirring address, touching on such subjects as "tradition" and "hands across the sea." Captain Sir Sebastian Cobble bid a warm farewell to Captain Perseus Otter, assuring him — perhaps with his own vessel's unadorned prow in mind — that the Royal Navy could always find a place for him if he retired. Finally Papa Schimmelhorn was borne down the gangplank on the shoulders of four stalwart seamen, while the entire ship's complement sang 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow' at the top of their voices.

Immediately afterward, Captain Otter, Papa Schimmelhorn, and Little Anton were flown to Washington, where they were questioned in great secrecy by naval experts, by technical experts, and by envious representatives of the Air Forces and the Army — all of whom, finding themselves beyond their depth, concurred in recommending that the whole business be left in Captain Otter's obviously able hands.

It was not until four days later that the Board of Directors of the Luedesing Time and Instrument Corporation of New Haven met for the express purpose of establishing a new order.

At the head of the table, old Heinrich Luedesing glared at his son Woodrow and at the Board. "I haff talked to Papa Schimmelhorn," he said. "Because ve are old friends, he says he vill come back — but only if ve make him Cheneral Manager, und Voodrow vorks for him..."

"This is ridiculous!" Woodrow Luedesing's indignation was loud and shrill. "The man is utterly unqualified! Why, I'll resign! I'll..."

"Bah!" Old Heinrich cut him short. "You vatch oudt, Voodrow, more nonzense und you haff a chob vorking inshtead for Lidtle Anton!"

Woodrow Luedesing looked around at the Board members for support — and found them unresponsive. Pouting, he lapsed into a sullen silence.

"Veil, dot iss settled," his father said decisively. "Now, Herr Doktor Wilen makes his report, and Captain Otter maybe giffs a speech. Then ve haff a vote."

Ferdinand Wilen stood up, his expression a curious mixture of relaxation and bewilderment. "Gentlemen," he said, "I know you realize how vital the Schimmelhorn Effect is to our strength and our security. I'm sure you'd like to understand just how it works. Well, so would I. At present the important thing is that it does work."

Several of the directors nodded emphatically.

"Your Papa Schimmelhorn —" Wilen grinned, "— did his best to explain the principle. He said that it was all because of Maxie's Constance, with whom he first became acquainted as a janitor at the Geneva Institute of Higher Physics. It took me quite a while to see what he was getting at. His genius functions at a subconscious level. It absorbs theoretical information which is quite meaningless to him, extrapolates from it, and integrates it with his own primitive technology. Presto, out comes a — dingus! In this instance, by Maxie I think he means Max Planck. The little wheels go round — something happens which may involve the value of Planck's Constant, and — we have invisibility!"

"Remarkable!" said one or two of the directors. "Astounding!" murmured several others.

"To say the least! And he used the same principle to conceal his extra manufacturing parts. Invisible, they occupied the 'waste space' in the unit, and were powered by leads which seemed to go nowhere. That was why it drove me to distraction when I tried to fix it."

"But why didn't the — the dingus come out in one piece instead of two?" someone asked.

"Because he missed three weeks of lectures in Geneva. Something just wasn't in the recipe. And that —" he shuddered slightly, "— brings us to Little Anton Fledermaus, who has turned out to be a perfect substitute for that something that isn't there. In childhood, rare individuals display supranormal powers — the phychokinetic poltergeist phenomenon, for instance. According to the parapsychologists who have examined him, our Little Anton has retained contact with an area of existence which he describes as 'just around the corner.' It seems to have no ordinary spaciotemporal coordinates, but to exist purely in relation to him. Light contact with it — when his eyes cross — enables him to see through such otherwise frustrating substances as silk, wool, and nylon. A closer contact — well, you've seen the demonstration. He holds the shell of Assembly M 'around the corner.' Half of it seems to disappear. He pops the tube in. And there we are!"

A portly director wrinkled his brow unhappily. "This science stuff's too deep for me," he grumbled. "What do we do now? That's what I want to know."

Wilen resumed his seat, and Captain Otter rose to address the Board. He was still unshaven. In fact, it was now apparent that he was letting his beard grow.

"I feel that this is not the time," he stated, "to quibble over theories and petty technicalities. Papa Schimmelhorn has shown his practical ability to my complete satisfaction. Furthermore, he and young Fledermaus disposed adroitly of two extremely dangerous foreign agents. It is the opinion of the Department of the Navy —" he frowned severely at Woodrow Luedesing, "— that Papa Schimmelhorn should be reinstated on his own terms."

He sat down again. Old Heinrich called the Board to order. And without delay, by a vote of eight to one, Papa Schimmelhorn was promoted to the post of General Manager.

A burst of cheering followed the announcement, and a secretary was instantly sent off to carry the good news. Some minutes passed before the Board became aware that Dr. Wilen had something more to say.

"Though I am not associated with this firm," he began apologetically, "I should like to make one suggestion..."

Old Heinrich urged him to proceed.

"A suggestion which I trust will be taken in good part by all concerned. Papa Schimmelhorn is undoubtedly a genius. So, in his way, is Little Anton. Besides, both of them have a certain excess of exuberance, of joie de vivre. Perhaps it would be well — tactfully, of course — to take a few precautions in order, to — er, protect them from themselves?"

Old Heinrich nodded soberly. Captain Perseus Otter reluctantly agreed that Dr. Wilen might have a point. But Woodrow Luedesing reacted much more sharply.

His pout vanished. Abruptly his face regained its rosy hue. He smiled beatifically.

"Gentlemen," he said, "leave that to me."

At three the following afternoon, Woodrow Luedesing found Papa Schimmelhorn and Little Anton in the office which he himself had formerly occupied. They were entertaining the shipping-office blonde. Papa Schimmelhorn, his arms around her slender waist, was telling her all about Sonya Lou. "...und Lidtle Anton says dot it vas nodt a cuckoo after all! It vas a bull-vinch! Ho-ho-ho!"

"Am I intruding?" Woodrow asked diffidently.

Papa Schimmelhorn assured him that he was not. "Ach, now you vork for me, you come right in! I vas chust telling Mimi here aboudt der lady shpy. Imachine it! To Europe she has gone vith der old shoe box, und opened it, und... Here in der paper, look. Oh, ho-ho-ho!"

Woodrow Luedesing accepted the newspaper, and, while Papa Schimmelhorn almost split his sides, he read a dispatch from Tass which claimed peevishly that the first cuckoo clock had really been invented by an intelligent young peasant from Kiev centuries before the Western world had even heard of such a thing.

"How fascinating," Woodrow remarked politely. "But what I really came to see you about, sir, was a small business matter..."

"Don'dt vorry aboudt business, Voodrow!" cried Papa Schimmelhorn. "I teach you now how nodt to be a stuffed shirt. I teach you to haff fun!"

"That's very good of you," replied Woodrow, "but, as you are General Manager, I felt that you should be the first to meet our new Director of Security. She's quite remarkable."

"She?" Papa Schimmelhorn flexed his biceps automatically. "Voodrow, iss she beaudtiful?"

"I would say statuesque, sir. But come see for yourself. She's waiting for you in her office right now."

Papa Schimmelhorn gave the shipping-room blonde a hasty peck. Taking Little Anton and Woodrow each by an arm, he led the way.

Thus they marched down the hall — but, when they came to the door marked Security, Woodrow stepped aside. "I'll see you later, sir," he said, with a broad wink.

"You are a goot boy, after all," asserted Papa Schimmelhorn, returning it.

Then Papa Schimmelhorn and Little Anton opened the door and went in eagerly. They stopped dead still. They stared —

"Ha!" said Mama Schimmelhorn.

The Ladies of Beetlegoose Nine

It is untrue that there was dancing in the streets when the people of New Haven heard that Papa Schimmelhorn had disappeared. A few biased parents may have rejoiced at the idea of sending their daughters safely back to work at Heinrich Luedesing's cuckoo clock factory, where he had been foreman. There may have been some celebrating by his male subordinates, who never had been able to compete with the masculine allure of his gigantic stature, bright blue eyes, and great white beard. And certain ministers did use his fate as a text for moral sermons in which there was more than a hint of jubilation.

The rest was mere malicious gossip. Many a modest maiden cried herself to sleep that night. Many a sprightly grass widow stained her lonely pillow with her tears. But the deepest sorrow was Heinrich Luedesing's, for he had lost a close friend, a jewel of an employee, and all his hopes of capturing the Grand Award, the Gold Medal of the forthcoming International Horological Exposition at Berne. For Papa Schimmelhorn had vanished within an hour after completing the world's most splendid cuckoo clock, an instrument of such perfection and complexity that even the directors of Patek-Phillipe had been expected to turn pea-green with envy at the sight of it.

Papa Schimmelhorn had vanished. Mama Schimmelhorn, for the first time in their more than sixty years of married life, had vanished with him. So had the perfect cuckoo clock. And so — though few were aware of it at the time — had Gustav-Adolf.

The exact chronology has never yet been set forth publicly, science and journalism alike having treated the Schimmelhorn accounts with unseemly levity. Therefore it is necessary to begin at the beginning — namely on May 12th, at precisely 11:58 P.M., Eastern Standard Time.

At that instant, the spaceship Vilvilkuz Snar Tuhl-Y't (which may be roughly translated as Lovely-Madame Mother-President Vilvilu) was hovering forty miles up over the center of New Haven. The male members of the crew were swabbing decks, twittering petty gossip at each other, and pretending to polish brass. Madame-Captain Groolu Hah, who had just succeeded in orienting the visible signal from the Intellectometer against its map-screen coordinates, was shouting orders at her excited staff in a beautiful bass voice. And Papa Schimmelhorn, in the loot and clutter of his basement workshop, was stepping back to regard his just-finished masterpiece.

Directly over his untidy bench, there was a gaudy poster showing as much as possible of a lady advertised as Ms. Prudence Pilgrim who, wearing only a white Puritan bonnet, was the star performer at  a topless-bottomless establishment called Horny Joe's.

Papa Schimmelhorn stepped back, gave the poster a sentimental glance, and pointed at the perfect cuckoo clock beside it.

"Look, Gustav-Adolf!" he cried out. "Chust like Herr Doktor Jung told me in Geneva, in der subconscience I am a chenius!"

On the bench, Gustav-Adolf placed a large striped paw on the pink catnip mouse he was dismembering, regarded the super-clock disdainfully, and muttered "Maow!" to indicate it was inedible.

Paying no attention to this criticism, Papa Schimmelhorn feasted his eyes upon his handiwork. The clock was four feet high and three feet wide. Its architecture was in the grand tradition of Cuckoo-Clock-Chalet-With-Gingerbread. In addition to the big central dial, it sported Fahrenheit and Centigrade thermometers, a rainfall gauge, a perpetual calendar, two barometers, and a device telling simultaneously the phases of the moon and the most likely times to catch grunion. Leaves and tendrils twined around its carved facade, and around numerous svelte female figures, all in attitudes of extreme abandon, and all modelled with delightful frankness after Ms. Prudence Pilgrim in her working clothes.

"How beaudtiful!" sighed Papa Schimmelhorn. "Under der insize — zo many vheels und chewels und dinguses. But ach! Almost it iss tvelve o'clock. Now, Gustav-Adolf, you chust vait!"

As he spoke, the minute hand moved the last fraction of an inch toward the hour. There was a click. The larger doors flew open to reveal a veritable choir of cuckoos.

The choir popped out and cuckooed in pretty counterpoint, and popped in again. Twelve times it repeated this performance, cleverly varying the theme and accompanied by a tiny glockenspiel. Papa Schimmelhorn winked at Gustav-Adolf. "Und now," he whispered, "comes der real McCoy."

The choir vanished. With a gentle brrr-r-t, the upper doors opened suddenly. There was revealed, in miniature, a sylvan scene — a painted backdrop of forests and snowy peaks, a wooden windlass over a rustic well. Grasping the handle, stood a chubby Alpine maid. Sidling up from behind her, around the well, came a smirking Alpine youth.

He came on tiptoe; he stretched out a hand; he gave the maiden an intimate and goosey pinch. The maiden shrieked; briefly she did the bumps; she started cranking at the windlass furiously. And the weights that ran the perfect cuckoo clock rose several inches, drawn upward by their chains.

"Zo cute!" chuckled Papa Schimmelhorn. "Der self-vinding comes from efery pinch. It iss perpetual motion, vhich no vun else invents. For poor old Heinrich, iss a nice surprise."

He removed the cuckoo clock, set the hands back an hour, and wrapped it, weights and all, in a discarded tartan bathrobe. "But Heinrich must vait vun more day," he remarked happily. "Tonight iss more important ve show to Prudie die lidtle ladies on der front who look like her."

He smiled to himself, imagining the nature of Ms. Pilgrim's reaction to this compliment. Then, in case it alone should prove inadequate, he dropped a bag of jelly beans into the pocket of his bright blue sports-coat. Finally, he picked up the remains of the catnip mouse, and hoisted twenty pounds of tough striped tomcat to his shoulder.

"Ve must be qviet like mices," he cautioned, looking regretfully at his 1922 Stanley Steamer touring car, painted British Racing Green, which he was redesigning to include an anti-gravity device. "If ve try to drife, Mama maybe hears. She iss a fine voman, Gustav-Adolf — only vith old ideas."

He was quite right. His wife's ideas regarding him were indeed old, dating back through six long decades of night-errantry. She had sensed that he was planning some new misdeed, and her suspicions had been thoroughly confirmed by a phone call from her friend Mrs. Hundhammer, the pastor's wife, who had heard about Ms. Prudence from Mrs. Heinrich Luedesing. At exactly 12:06 A.M., when the basement door clicked shut behind him, she rose from her chair in the living-room, where she had been waiting.

Her stiff black dress creaking threateningly, she seized her black umbrella by the hilt and hefted it. "Anoder naked dancing girl!" she hissed. "Chust like der Vorld's Fair in 1915! It iss enough. Now I put a shtop!"

Breathing righteous indignation, she left the house, and, clinging closely to concealing shadows, trailed her wayward spouse as cleverly as any private eye.

At   12:09  A.M.,  twenty  miles  straight  up, Madame-Captain Groolu Hah still stared incredulously at the Intellectometer's map-screen signal. "I can't believe it!" she growled, fussing with the fringe of peanut-butter hair allowed her by her rank. "Six-oh-oh-fourteen on the Thil scale — nobody's ever measured such a mind!" She frowned ferociously at a younger woman at the instrument's control panel. "Are you sure you didn't drop a stitch somewhere, Lieutenant?"

The younger woman lifted a gadget like a plastic buttonhook out of a maze of interlacing wires. She touched her single carroty spit-curl in salute. "Fragrant Madame," she replied respectfully, "I've checked the whole resistance network several times, and we're at exactly the right altitude for accuracy. Besides, this is a close-similarity planet, so there aren't any Gwip factors to interfere."

"I know that," snapped the Captain. "The natives can't be anything but humanoid. That only makes it more peculiar. Don't you realize that the highest rating measured yet is two-five-five-eleven, and that was right at home?"

"C-could it be s-some sort of queer male-dominated world, F-Fragrant Madame?"

"Impossible! We ve found only two, and their inhabitants were savages, as we expected. No, it's simply a super-intellect down there — one that might actually be able to solve our problem for us. And that's what worries me. They may get angry at us and retaliate — and I don't like to think about the weapons they might have. We'll just have to go in and get back out again fast. I only hope we can catch her in the open, that's all."

Decisively, the Captain hitched up her brassiere and half-apron. "Commander, is the landing segment ready?"

"Ready and womanned, Fragrant Madame," grunted a stocky brunette standing by a large open port. "We've transferred the ifk. We can come unstuck anytime."

"And the snap-net?"

"Cocked and ready, Fragrant Madame."

"Very well — prepare to cast off!"

The brunette snapped to attention; she saluted by touching the thin pigtail hanging down over her left ear; turning smartly, she hoisted herself through the port.

Instantly, all was action. Junior officers repeated the command into intercom mouthpieces, and the men of the crew, giggling excitedly, scurried around to the orders of a brawny female bosun. Six of them hauled up an enormous round lid made of the same opaque yellow plastic as the hull of the ship. Four others brought things resembling giant-sized toothpaste tubes. Two more stood by with a large steaming kettle.

A bosun barked. Quickly, the toothpaste boys squeezed a brown, viscous substance into the channel running around the projecting face of the port. The lads with the lid slapped it into position. Another bosun counted to twenty out loud. The kettle was emptied into a spout over the port; the spout was sealed with brown goo and a plug; and for a while the kettle's contents could be heard rumbling and gurgling inside.

"Report!" snapped the Captain.

"Port sealed," answered a bosun.

"Landing segment, report!"

"Segment unstuck," sang out the Commander.

The Captain hesitated for an instant. Then she shrugged. "Might as well be killed for an ooth as a sarlig." she muttered. "Landing segment away!"

Quite unaware that she had just supervised an operation which would have given any Terrestrial designer of spaceships a full-blown neurosis, she began guiding the segment down to its rendezvous.

As it descended, Papa Schimmelhorn continued on his carefree way, never suspecting that his mind was acting like a beacon for strangers out of Space, or that Mama Schimmelhorn was following not more than half a block away. Therefore he felt free to give Gustav-Adolf the benefit of his experience of life and love.

"Zo, Gustav-Adolf," he began, "you vant to know vhy Prudie makes die young punks pay to vatch und aftervards she has a date vith Papa Schimmelhorn?"

Gustav-Adolf, savoring the scent of a back-fence adversary on the warm night air, growled emphatically.

"Dot's der shpirit!" cried Papa Schimmelhorn. "You listen. I tell how I am full of vinegar at eighty years, und nodt like poor old Heinrich, vith no lead in der pencil. Vhen I vas tvelve —"

He described the precocious episode in detail. Then, blonde by blonde, brunette by plump brunette, he went on through the ardent rumblings of his adolescence, through the journeyman experiences of his young manhood, to the good, steady craftsmanship achieved in middle age.

By the time the landing segment reached fifty thousand feet, he had — both chronologically and on the ground — covered more than half the distance to Miss Prudence, and was discussing the lush redheaded widow who had enlivened his several years as a janitor at the Geneva Institute for Higher Physics, where he had first discovered his scientific genius.

As the segment passed twenty thousand feet, he was explaining how an adventure with a female string quartet had revealed the full flowering of his masculinity at three score years and ten.

As it dropped down — ten thousand feet, five, one — and as his powerful strides took him deeper into the district of bars and adult bookstores and dubious hotels where Ms. Prudence did her nightly stint — he neatly inventoried his more recent triumphs.

Finally, the segment hovering a scant hundred feet above his head, and unaware that now behind him his wife was silently and swiftly closing in, he paused in the darkened parking lot behind Horny Joe's.

Quietly, the vessel overhead descended fifty feet — and quietly Mama Schimmelhorn advanced fifteen.

"Oh-ho-ho-ho!" he chuckled. "Gustav-Adolf, I giff you goot advice. To keep der vinegar vhen you are old —" He pulled the long, striped tail playfully. "— you must keep chasing pretty lidtle pussycats! Und now ve —"

"Und now ve vhat?" demanded Mama Schimmelhorn, as the sharp point of her umbrella caught him in the ribs. "You think you get avay again, ha? To shtay up late, und feel dot dancing girl vithout her clothes, und teach mein Gustav-Adolf dirty tricks?" She reapplied the point of her umbrella several times. "Right now I take you by der ear! Ve go shtrait ho—"

She never finished. Without a sound, the snap-net from the landing segment fell and enfolded them. It rose into the air. The segment swallowed it.

In the control room of the Vilvilkuz Snar Tuhl-T't, the brilliant signal on the screen winked out. There was sudden silence. Captain and Lieutenant glanced at each other apprehensively.

"Well, I—I guess that means she's in the bag, ha-ha." The Captain's laughter lacked enthusiasm.

"Y-yes, F-Fragrant Madame, I'm af-f-fraid it does," quavered the Lieutenant. "Did you see what I saw j-just before we caught her — on the screen, I mean?"

"Those squiggles?"

"They — they didn't look like squiggles — not to me. They looked like regular s-signals. One of them was pretty high, too, by our standards — around two-four-four-something. And the other — well, I know you won't believe me, this being an alien planet, but it looked just like a cat's!"

"Nonsense!" asserted the Captain, a little too loudly. "They were squiggles, that's all. And if they weren't, what of it? You aren't frightened of a cat, I hope — not with the ship as full of them as a husband shop."

"Of c-course not, Fragrant Madame. What worries me is that signal in between. It might belong to almost anything — maybe some horrible, h-hairy creature with great big t-tentacles!"

Involuntary, the Captain shivered — a sign of unfeminine weakness that angered her. "Dammit, Lieutenant," she shouted, "do you want to get the men hysterical? Our problem's grave enough to warrant any risk. Besides, I'm taking all possible precautions. When the net's opened, we'll have the spray-guns ready. So shut up — that's an order!"

And she stamped off to attend to the purely military details of the reception.

Much has been, and still is being, written about the nature of a first contact with extraterrestrials. All of it is, of course, ridiculous — for the event, as it actually occurred involved nothing more extraordinary than Papa and Mama Schimmelhorn, Gustav-Adolf, the complement of the spaceship Vilvilkuz Snar Tuhl-T't, and an astounding assortment of emotions.

Though the Commander in charge of the landing segment made the return trip in a hurry, she did not push her craft into any uncomfortable accelerations — an impossible procedure where ifk are the motive power. Including the time to glue-in and unseal the port, nearly twenty minutes elapsed before the net was finally deposited on the control room floor.

Aboard ship, tension had mounted. The men were twitching and whimpering. The women, spray-guns ready, were watching the reopened port in grim silence. Twelve men and two bosuns stood near it, looking dismal.

"Net on its way!" came a voice from the port — and the base of the net made its appearance.

"Look alive there!" shouted the Captain.

Urged on by the bosuns, the twelve men seized the net — tightly woven, semi-rigid, like a drawn-out lobster-trap. For a moment, it lay there, quivering and shaking and emitting blood-curdling noises.

"S-set it on end," the Captain ordered.

Reluctantly, the little men obeyed.

"P-prepare to open it."

Six men laid trembling hands to a line fastened at one side of the snap-net; the other six grasped its counterpart.

The Captain faced them, pale but brave.

As one woman, her officers primed their spray-guns; aimed them.

"N-now!" she cried.

Uttering a simultaneous and despairing sob, the crewmen pulled. Abruptly, the snap-net came apart. Its two sides separated and fell away. An awful hush descended on the room —

There, breathing fire, stood Mama Schimmelhorn. Her stiff black dress was rumpled; her small black hat was squashed. But her umbrella was still firmly in her hand. She was unbowed.

Behind her, Papa Schimmelhorn was in a sadder state. His jaw sagged loosely. Blood trickled down into his shredded beard from numerous lacerations which had enabled Gustav-Adolf to retain a perch atop his head. Clutching the bathrobe and its treasure to his breast, he seemed entirely unaware that now his friend — ears flat, teeth bared, and every hair erect — was making him a battlement from which to cry a terrible feline challenge to the worlds.

Aghast, all color draining from their faces, the alien crew stared straight at Mama Schimmelhorn. For just an instant, she stared right back. Then, nostrils flaring, she advanced a pace, and hammered her umbrella's point against the deck.

"More naked vomenf" she trumpeted.

Raising her weapon, she whirled on Papa Schimmelhorn. "Ach, you should be ashamed! For der old goat at more than eighty years vun at a time iss maybe nodt enough? I giff der lesson vith der bumbershoot —"

She saw his face. She stopped in mid-attack. She did a very careful double-take. These women were certainly not dancing girls. They looked more like a bathing party of female Russian sergeants, painted by a Renoir without the glow and with a fragmentary and slightly surrealistic grudge against all hairdressers and the garment industry. They carried things like fireplace bellows with coffee-pots attached, which they were pointing at her. Behind them, a swarm of swishy little men in colored frocks were peering out, and squeaking shrilly, and ducking back again.

The women were now booming out excited comments in a strange language she did not understand, so she ignored them. Her mind was putting two and two together rapidly —

An especially large Commander was the first to find her voice. "L-look at her!" she gasped. "She has c-clothes on!"

"B-b-black clothes!" exclaimed another officer.

"All over!" cried a third. "And she has all her hair!"

They started talking all at once. "She — she must be at least a Mother-President!'" "A-at least!" "And we — we've kidnaped her!" "Hoisted her in a net as if she was a — a kreth or something!" "Look at her!"

Mama Schimmelhorn shuffled the data she had available. She added memories of many an afternoon spent in the company of a grand-nephew named Willie Fledermaus, aged twelve. The answer came to her. "Shpacers!" she told herself under her breath. "Und they are only vomen vith lidtle pipshqveak men, nodt octupusers like in die comic-books!"

Her anger settled to a good white heat. Zo maybe you are vashervomen from Chupiter or Mars? she thought, rearing her head and standing even more stiffly than before. Veil, you vatch oudt — efen vith lenses und die defer tricks like in dot Kinseysons Report, you don 'dt fool Mama Schimmelhorn! Villie has told me all aboudt —"

"Look at her!" said the large Commander, in awe. "She — she's absolutely regal! Mightn't she be a Mother-Empress, or something of the sort? I mean, with powers of life and death, and fleets of warships, like on Loog IV?"

"She's simply furious!" whispered a junior officer. "Oh, Fragrant Madame — wh-what'll we do with her?"

Prior to the opening of the net, the Captain's worst apprehensions had been concerned with her quarry's stupendous intellect, but never had she imagined if combined with a supreme political authority. Now she was torn between the hazardous completion of her mission, the equally unpromising return of the dread personage to solid earth, and — rather vaguely — some deed of violence to rid her vessel once and for all of its unwelcome guests.

She hesitated — and her hand was forced. Like all the rest, the imaginative Lieutenant at the Intellectometer had, until then, had eyes only for the central, and female, figure in the tableau. Now, for the first time, she really noticed Papa Schimmelhorn. She goggled. "Look at that thing!" she screeched. "I — I knew it! A hairy monster! It — it's been drinking blood!"

A cry of horror rose.

"Kill it!" croaked the Lieutenant, trying to aim her spray-gun around Mama Schimmelhorn.

The hairy monster stared at her stupidly. Gustav-Adolf, having descended to a shoulder, bared his fangs and hissed at everyone. And Mama Schimmelhorn, reacting instantly, adopted a technique she had used with great success against unfriendly dogs. She levelled her umbrella. She pressed the catch. Working it quickly back and forth, flapping the fabric in and out ahead of her, she moved relentlessly against the enemy.

"Put down der shqvirter!" came her dreadful voice.

The officers retreated hastily.

Whimpering a little, still trying frantically to draw a bead, the Lieutenant stood her ground —

It was too much for the Captain. She sprang. She seized the spray-gun and threw it to the floor. "You fool! she yelled. "Do you want to kill us all? Look at her weapon — it's mechanical!"

There was a frightened echoing of the word; several more spray-guns clattered down.

The Captain turned to Mama Schimmelhorn. She bowed repeatedly, trying to mock up an appeasing smile. Aside she said, "Th-that creature with her — it hasn't any t-tentacles that I can see — m-maybe it's not a monster after all — maybe it's just a huge, abnormal man —" She shuddered. "— it's p-probably quite tame — it's probably her cat-bearer, that's all —"

Mama Schimmelhorn did not smile back. She furled the big umbrella contemptuously. Somehow, she knew, she had gained the upper hand; now she was going to make the most of it. From her black handbag, she took her usually un-needed hearing aid. She raised its microphone to her lips. She gestured at the floor. "Ve go back down!" she announced imperiously. "Or right avay I call der Shpace Patrol!"

Then, so that none would miss the point, she grasped her bumbershoot firmly by the middle and, turning its needle-nose toward the stars, traced out a violent, vertical trajectory. "Whee-ee-eee—BOOM!" she shouted, making Willie Fledermaus' favorite rocket noise. "BOOM! Zap-zap-zap-BANG!"

Chaos erupted. "She — she's using a communicator!" yelped several voices simultaneously. "She's going to call her warships!" cried several others. "We — we'll be destroyed!" mooed an enormous bosun fearfully.

The women milled about. The crewmen, bleating, ran blindly up and down, tripping each other and the officers.

The Captain dropped to her knees in front of Mama Schimmelhorn. "Oh, please, Your Loveliness!" she begged. "Don't call your navy and — and have us all disintegrated. We didn't know you were a Mother-Empress. Really, we didn't. Why, if we had, we never would've kidnaped you like that — without your husbands and your retinue! We never even would've thought of it —"

She rattled on. The tumult died away. With bated breath, her officers watched for the Mother-Empress' response. The bosuns, as quietly as possible, started restoring order among the men. And Mama Schimmelhorn, frowning ferociously to cover her surprise, muttered, "Vhat iss — down on die knees und gobble-gobble-gobble in Roumanian? Maybe you think I vant to buy a vacuum-shveeper made in Chupiter? Veil, I don'dt." Again, she pointed earthward. "Ve go back down! I giff you der address!"

"Most Radiant Madame! We'll take you back again if you insist — of course we will!" The Captain pointed downward, nodded rapidly, and let her face express the utmost desolation and despair. "But please don't make us do it, Your Seductiveness. We need you desperately! We really do —" She pointed upward, opening her arms wide in a rapturous welcome. For a moment, she held the pose, then swiftly rearranged her features into their former hopelessness and, pointing at the cowering crewmen desperately, squeezed out a tear.

Though Mama Schimmelhorn understood immediately, she did not thaw. "Zo you haff troubles vith die lidtle men?" she remarked sarcastically. "Vhat iss — they shneak avay to play die tiddleyvinks? Und now, because you are too big und shtupid to fix up, you kidsnatch me der discipline to teach, nicht wahr?" Again she hammered the umbrella's point against the deck. "Now I go home!"

"Shall we prepare the landing segment, Fragrant Madame?" asked a despondent voice. "For — for the return?"

The Captain hesitated, finding the actual order hard to give — and suddenly all thought of orders was driven from her mind. From the great, gory figure of Papa Schimmelhorn came a metallic click. Immediately, he was the cynosure of all eyes. There was a fraction of a second's pause. Then, muted only slightly by the bathrobe's folds, the plain-song of the cuckoo choir resounded through the room.

Still in a semi-coma, Papa Schimmelhorn instinctively took action, as 'any craftsman will when he finds the proper functioning of his masterpiece obstructed by extraneous matter. Holding the clock aloft with one huge hand, he stripped away the bathrobe and let it fall.

Ms. Prudie Pilgrim had never achieved so stunning an effect. His audience gasped. It stood there spellbound as the whir-r-r and click announced the reopening of the door. It gasped again as the choir appeared, and sang, and popped in again.

This was repeated ten times more, and with each repetition the wonder grew. Then—brrr-r-t — the upper doors flew open upon the sylvan scene.

The audience did its best to gasp, and failed.

Smirking, the Alpine youth tiptoed around the wall. The Alpine maiden twitched her little hips. The youth reached out his eager hand, and pinched —

And, as the maiden shrieked, and did the bumps, and cranked the windlass handle furiously, the personnel of the Vilvilkuz Snar Tuhl-T't went simply wild. The blushing crewmen squealed and hid their eyes. Astounded cries and exclamations filled the air. It was a mechanism! It couldn't be! Impossible, incredible — but there it was! The little figure of the girl — completely clothed! What did it mean? How? Why? What? Where —?

"Why, it's a zimdzig rite!" the Captain cried. "It has to be. That's why the boy is pinching her. That's why she's covered up so — so lasciviously! We — we mustn't give up now!"

Still on her knees, she turned on Mama Schimmelhorn the sort of look that any adequately early Mexican would have reserved for Mr. Quetzalcoatl fresh off the boat. She seized a long and hard Imperial hand in both of hers, and fell to kissing it. Her officers, kneeling with her, added the chorus of their own appeals.

Mama Schimmelhorn pulled her hand away. Her temper flared. She marshalled all the scathing phrases which, in the past, she had employed against brash salesmen and feminine neighbors whose morality was suspect.

She had no chance to use them.

The sudden animation of the clock had wakened Papa Schimmelhorn. His mind had slipped back into gear, confronting him with the appalling fact of his abduction by lady wrestlers of unsurpassed ferocity and ugliness. It had imbued him with a great yearning to escape; then, finding no instant way to satisfy this urge, it had reminded him of the waiting Prudence Pilgrim.

The synthesis of two such potent concepts was unfortunate. Papa Schimmelhorn lurched forward. He plucked at an Imperial sleeve.

"Mama!" he demanded peevishly. "Mama, you tell die lady friends to ledt me loose! It iss important. Vith my lidtle Prudie pussycat I haff a date!"

His listeners heard a great bass voice issuing from a body which, for all its size, was obviously male. They saw a mere man daring to lay impious hands on a most august female personage. The Captain and her officers began to growl and mutter angrily. The little crewmen screamed like wounded rabbits and made vain efforts to escape.

Mama Schimmelhorn experienced a reaction less overt but equally profound. Reminded suddenly that her husband had not been snatched away from the pursuits of innocence, she recalled all those misdeeds Ms. Prudence so aptly symbolized.

Abruptly, she perceived that these large women had treated her with a respect indicative of keen discernment, gentle breeding, and the best intentions. Despite their strange apparel or lack of it, she saw they were responsible and sober citizens. And, as the bosuns took drastic and effective action, she realized that, whatever their trouble with the little men might be, it was not disciplinary. In short, their way of life looked as if it had much to recommend it.

Just as this dawned on her, Papa Schimmelhorn plucked at her arm again. "Hurry up, Mama. Get a viggle on!"

She whirled. "Shudt up! From now, remember who iss boss — und shpeak vhen you are maybe shpoken to — und do vhat you are told!" She punctuated these remarks with her umbrella. Then, turning her back on him, she surveyed the kneeling women, the chastened little men. Smiling generously, she pointed heavenward and nodded several times. She patted the Captain's tonsured scalp, and said, "Iss okay, shveetheart. Chust this vun time, Mama vill come mit."

Madame-Captain Groolu Hah let out a mighty shout of pure joy. Her officers all echoed her. The men emitted squeaks of pleased alarm, and blushed, and sucked their thumbs excitedly.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, Dazzling Madame!" the Captain bellowed. "Thank you, Your Glamorousness! You won't regret it, I promise you! We'll do our best to make you comfortable. My quarters don't amount to much, but maybe if we fix them up they'll do. And you'll be waited on by senior officers. And you can have any of our husbands, even the nicest, most expensive ones —"

From Willie Fledermaus, Mama Schim-melhorn had learned a good deal about interplanetary protocol. She shushed the Captain with a peremptory hand, and indicated that she desired first something to sit upon, and then writing instruments.

The Captain beat her breast. "Oh, Your Radiancy! Forgive me! How could I have  forgotten?" She poked a nearby Lieutenant. "You — what's the big idea? Are you going to kneel there staring like a moonstruck man and let the Mother-Empress stand like that? Break out my best chair. Scramble!"

The Lieutenant scrambled. A moment later, a squad of little men entered carrying a chair, and one of their fellows came panting up behind with a big sheet of greenish cardboard and what appeared to be a charcoal stick.

The chair looked as though its maker had been influenced by a bad dream of fuzzy sausages, but Mama Schimmelhorn allowed herself to be enthroned. She took the cardboard, propped it up, and drew a circle from which rays shot out. Holding it so all might see, she said with a proprietary pride, "Der Sun."

"Dayr-zhtan," repeated all her officers.

"You don'dt pronounce zo goot," said Mama Schimmelhorn. "But maybe you vill learn. Now vatch — I show die planets."

Swiftly, searching her memory of talks with Willie, she sketched in nine reasonably round orbits, gave each a blob to represent its incumbent sphere, and, speaking very clearly, announced their names as she came to them. She transposed Mars and Mercury, got Pludto, Chupiter, and Saturn all mixed up, and installed Trantor where Neptune should have been.

It seemed a little silly to her, but Willie had averred that something of the sort was comme-il-faut when good fellows from one planet and another got together, so she went through with it. As she did so, one circumstance aroused her curiosity. When she came to the third planet from the Sun, all the big women bowed in unison, reminding her of all their previous signs of reverence. So, on finishing the list, she returned to it experimentally. She drew a little orbit and a moon. She repeated, "Earth."

"Yurr-ruth!" They bowed again.

She pointed at herself — they bowed even more profoundly than before.

She began to cogitate. Me und der Earth — vot iss? Maybe they think I'm somevun else than Mama Schimmelhorn? Der vay they bow und shcrape — as if I vas die Empress Chosephine!

Suddenly, she was inspired. Und vhy nodt? she thought. Who knows der difference? Only Papa — und here he does nodt count.

Curling her lip, she looked down at the diagram. Squarely and harshly, she put her right thumb down over the third planetary blob. "Dot's me!" she said.

Her listeners' foreheads almost touched the deck.

Vhy, chust imachine! thought Mama Schimmelhorn. She was delighted — not because she had achieved a perfect understanding with these members of an alien culture, but because now suddenly the full potentialities of the situation became apparent to her. Recalling the powers available to such relatively liberal potenates as Ivan the Terrible, Caligula, and Genghis Khan, she gave poor Papa Schimmelhorn a stony glance. Zo, she muttered, shtill you vould like to chase die pretty pussycats? From now, vatch oudt! I send you to Siberia. I feed you to die lions in der zoo. Off vith der head!

A look of Machiavellian cunning crossed her brow. Und I too must vatch oudt, she told herself, zo der big girls nefer know I am chust me, married to an old goat who von't shtay home. Mama, you must behafe like you vas Qveen of Shpain und Pordugal.

She tapped her foot. The big girls looked at her. "Okay," she said, extending the cardboard and the pencil stick, "now show me vhere you liff."

Carefully, the Captain peeled a layer of the board away. Then she too drew a sun, and orbits, and planetary blobs.

There were fourteen of them.

Mein gootness! thought Mama Schimmelhorn. Anoder shtar — dot iss more far avay efen than Chupiter! As her idea of stellar distances was vague, she wasn't too impressed.

The Captain pointed to the star. "Yar'myut," she announced with pride. "Yar'myut." After a moment, observing no reaction, she repeated it a little anxiously. "Yar'-myut?"

"How shtupid!" Mama Schimmelhorn exclaimed. "Der name of your own shtar nodt to know!" She pointed to the star herself. "Beetlegoose," she declared authoritatively.

The star was not Betelgeuse. It was, in fact, a small red-orange star lying in quite an opposite direction. Betelgeuse, however, was the only astral name she could remember, and she suspected that it would do as well as any.

Dutifully, the big girls echoed, "Bittl-goordz."

"Dot's better," said Mama Schimmelhorn approvingly, and she went on to number all their planets from the inside outward, making them repeat each number after her. When they came to Nine, however, her pupils, with much enthusiasm and many pointings, identified it as their place of origin.

The discovery pleased her. "You see?" she said indulgently. "Zo simple! Now ve know all aboudt — you are die ladies from Beetlegoose Nine!"

"Bittl-goordz Naheen!" shouted the ladies happily.

"Dot's right — but shtill you don'dt pronounce. Maybe to learn der English you are nodt shmart enough. Veil, I learn to shpeak your langvidge anyhow. Iss easy, because I am a Shviss."

She broke off. The Captain had pulled away the second diagram, and, with the utmost diffidence, was making motions indicative of the desire to draw. She gave permission graciously. "Zo, Lidtle Eva, you vant to tell me something? Go ahead."

With bold, broad strokes, the Captain sketched what seemed to be the sections of a thick-cored tangerine. Swiftly, she scribbled lines cutting off the top third of the core and dividing each outer segment into three parts. She added several wiggles vaguely resembling companionways and hatches.

A spaceship like a grapefruidt on der inside! marvelled Mama Schimmelhorn. Villie should only see — ach, he vould nodt beliefe!

The Captain outlined her own quarters on the floor plan — one very large room with a figure to represent herself, and a smaller adjoining chamber inhabited by several little men. She showed herself moving into less commodious quarters.   And she depicted Mama Schimmelhorn, complete with bumbershoot, installed within the premises so lately vacated. Then she indicated proudly that the new tenant was welcome to any little men who happened to be left around.

"There!" she whispered to her sister officers. "At any rate, she'll see our hospitality's completely civilized."

But Mama Schimmelhorn saw nothing of the sort. "Ridiculous!" she snapped. "You think you leafe der lidtle shqvirts behind zo Mama puts to bed und gifes der medicine? I show you who iss Qyenn!"

She took the pencil stick. Quickly, she scratched out all the little men. Crudely but unmistakably, she drew in Papa Schimmelhorn and Gustav-Adolf.

There were exclamations of astonishment — at the Imperial kindness in refusing to deprive her inferiors of their husbands even temporarily, at her courage in having her huge, hairy servitor quartered next to her, and at the peculiar customs of a world where such goings-on were unremarkable.

The Captain thanked her volubly. "Of course your cat can have my husband-room, Most Tempting Madame," she declared, "and your — your cat-bearer can stay there too. You can control him if anybody can, I guess. Besides, I'm going to put my own sweet little Tuptup in there with him, to keep him company, and to call for hel — I mean, to be there just in case —"

A flurry of feet and a short-lived, gurgling scream told them that the small gentleman in question had been collared in attempting to escape his new assignment.

"Tuptup's really very brave," explained the Captain. "At home, I let him go out in the dark all by himself. He'll be a little nervous right at first, and not be able to keep things on his stomach probably, but afterwards I'm sure they'll be good friends. And now there's — well, there's one more thing —"

She hesitated, blushing furiously.

"Shpeak up," urged Mama Schimmelhorn. "I am a married woman."

Pointing at Papa Schimmelhorn, the Captain made it clear that trousers were unspeakably obscene by polite Beetlegoosian standards. She sketched a sequence in which the pair in question was first removed and then exchanged for a decent and decorous colored frock.

Mama Schimmelhorn snickered — the idea appealed to her. She made appropriate motions of consent.

The Captain barked her orders. The burly bosuns began converging on their prey. Gustav-Adolf quitted his perch, trotted over to Mama Schimmelhorn, leaped to her lap, and settled down to purr.

And Papa Schimmelhorn, warned by some occult instinct, tried unavailingly to edge away, and made despairingly defiant noises in his beard.

The bosuns paused, looking to the Mother-Empress for encouragement.

She smiled at them. "I tell him to hold shtill," she said, "zo you can take der trousers off und put inshtead der lidtle petticoat. Ach, he vill look zo cute!"

Papa Schimmelhorn roared incoherently.

"Und do nodt argue," she ordered him, gesturing at a large Commander nearby. "Now giff der clock to Mrs. Elephant, zo no vun breaks it vhen der pants come off."

"Nein! NEIN! I vill nodt giff avay!" He stamped and spluttered; and the bosuns, obviously impressed, started to back off.

Mama Schimmelhorn hefted her umbrella. "You vant me to get tough? Nincompoop, better you listened more to Villie Fledermaus. Vhen in Rome, ve do like Romers do. Ve are going to visit vith die shpace-ladies, who think I am a Qveen. They are Beetlegoosers."

The last word penetrated — but Papa Schimmelhorn assumed that it referred, not to a place of origin, but to some alien custom of unexampled quaintness and barbarity. He uttered a batrachian gulp, and passively allowed the Commander to take the cuckoo clock.

After that, and once the bosuns had solved the mystery of the terrestrial zipper, the ceremony went forward smoothly. Many were the exclamations of wonder and astonishment at the sights revealed, and many the cries of mingled disappointment and relief when the Mother-Empress intervened to permit him to retain his shorts.

They removed his sports-coat and his shirt, his socks and shoes. They measured him. A dozen little men came running in bearing bright bolts of cloth which, with timorous twitters, they held against him for Mama Schimmelhorn's comparison. She considered each one carefully, wondering aloud whether it suited him and if Ms. Prudence would approve of it. Finally, she chose a Shocking Pink, with a rather toxic yellow for frills and edging. The cloth was spread out on the deck. The little men squeaked happily, and crawled around it, busy with shears and glue. In no time at all, the frock was ready, and a pair of bosuns pulled it down over Papa Schimmelhorn's unresisting head.

Everyone looked pleased, and there were numerous comments on his improved appearance. Then the Captain sang out a cheerful order, and Mama Schimmelhorn was hoisted — Gustav-Adolf, chair, and all — onto the broad shoulders of half a dozen officers. Three little men with nose-flutes took up positions in front of her, immediately preceding the proud Commander with the cuckoo clock. Papa Schimmelhorn, flanked by his bodyguard, was prodded into line. The Captain signalled. The nose-flutes tootled a gay, though slightly bronchial, air. And the Mother Empress was borne in triumph to her new quarters.

Sheer intelligence does not necessarily determine the rate at which an organism adapts to its environment. Papa Schimmelhorn, with a mind several times as powerful as any previously measured in the known Universe, made no voluntary adaptations whatsoever during his first hours aboard the ship. Mama Schimmelhorn, much lower on the scale, started at once to plan how she could force the environment to adapt to her. But Gustav-Adolf, the measure of whose intellect was a mere squiggle, gave it a quick going-over, snarled at it a few times, and took to it like a duck to water.

He accompanied his mistress to the Captain's quarters, containing a monstrous pancake of a bed, a lot of hairy sausage furniture in bilious colors, and several badly-tinted pin-up pictures of little men. Expressing his immediate disapproval of the local odors, he decided to explore. He mewed at the door leading to the anteroom, and was not astonished when it opened automatically.

Before him he beheld a much smaller chamber, furnished only with five tiny cots and a huge portrait of the Captain. Four of the cots had been pushed together to form a single couch against one wall, and on it, rocking his head between his hands and groaning miserably, sat Papa Schimmelhorn in his brand-new frock. The fifth cot was in a corner as far away as possible. Tied to it by a leg, and obviously in a state of abject terror, cringed a little man whose personality reminded Gustav-Adolf instantly of mice. His hackles rose. Stiff legged, he started stalking. The little man attempted to escape beneath the bed. Gustav-Adolf stopped and looked back over his shoulder to see if Papa Schimmelhorn would join in the sport. He waited for a minute. Then, discouraged by his friend's disinterest as well as by his quarry's lack of gumption, he shrugged disgustedly. Tail high, he went to the second door, mewed at it, and strode out into the passageway.

For some time, he had been aware that he was by no means the only cat aboard, and had been following his nose toward the promise of feline fight and frolic. Now an odor assailed his nostrils which, though peculiarly anemic, could have originated only with another tomcat. He lowered his ears, swelled his tail, and assumed his best hungry tiger pose.

"Mum-um-um-blurk!" he roared. "Blah-h-row-ow-ooOOH-ROW!" which in Cat meant, "Ah, y' dirty bum! I'll beatcha brains out! I'll tear ya limb from limb!"

He launched himself around the corner— straight into the midst of eight or a dozen tiny tomcats congregated around an alcove in the wall. Spitting, they took off vertically; spitting, they hit the deck again; then, mewing pitifully, all but two fled. This unhappy pair — a yellow and a scrawny black and white — found themselves trapped within the alcove by Gustav-Adolf's massive bulk.

He regarded them in astonishment. "Huh!" he growled disgustedly. "Joov'nile delinquens! Punk kids playin' big. Y' pantywaists!" He bared his inch-long fangs. "Y' wanta fight?"

Neither of the pantywaists was tempted by this offer. "Mew-mew-mew-mew!" chattered the yellow one. "D-d-don't you dare touch me. Just don't you d-dare!"

Gustav-Adolf waded in. A quick one-two to the chops sent the yellow tomcat sprawling. A hay-rake set of claws scooped the black-and-white out of the alcove, hoisted him a foot into the air, dropped him with a thud. Screeching, both vanished down the corridor.

He sent a disciplinary imprecation after them, brushed himself off, and investigated the alcove. It held a shallow plate filled with a thin, shrimpy gruel, which the pantywaists apparently had been drinking. He wrinkled his nose at it, deeming it no proper diet for a red-blooded he-cat, and looked around.

In front of him, protruding from the wall, he saw a lever. His nose informed him that it had something to do with his own species, so experimentally he tapped it with a paw. At once, a large tray slid out, full of nice, clean sand; and Gustav-Adolf, reminded of neglected matters, climbed in gratefully. After awhile, having filled his excavation and kicked half the sand out onto the floor, he got out again. "What won't they think of next?" he thought admiringly.

His thought was answered by a growl. He whirled. Coming towards him, carrying a plump, dead mouse and wearing an expression of the utmost arrogance, was the biggest female cat he had ever seen. She was a tortoiseshell, and he had always had a special yen for tortoiseshells; he looked her over much as his master would have eyed a king-sized chorus girl. Besides, seeing the mouse aroused his appetite. Leering, he sidled up to her. "Hi, chick!" he rumbled. "Gimme a bite, huh? C'mon — mebbe I'll make a pass atcha —"

The lady-cat, whose name in Beetlegoosian meant Lambie-pie, was the Captain's favorite, and hen of the walk wherever she chose to go. She took one look, decided that here was a lad who definitely needed whittling down to size, placed her mouse carefully on the deck, and swung.

Gustav-Adolf was taken by surprise. He staggered, ears ringing; and Lambie-pie, who had never needed more than one swing to settle any tomcat's hash, calmly started to retrieve her mouse.

This was a strategic error. Gustav-Adolf gathered every muscle. "So ya wanta wrastle!" he roared. "Okay!"

Instantly, he and Lambie-pie exploded into a traditional cat-fight pinwheel of flying fur, claws, teeth, and piercing screams. It was a new experience for her. Tough as she was, she had not been born aboard a Norwegian merchant ship, nor trained in the martial arts by the waterfront cats of Glasgow and Marseilles and the dock rats of Port Said.

In a matter of moments, Gustav-Adolf had her down, the worse for wear by several patches of hide and a torn ear. "Say uncle!" he growled, through a mouthful of fur, and shifted his armed hind feet on her stomach.

"Un-uncle," echoed the outraged Lambie-pie.

Eyeing her, he let go his hold, and placed a proprietary paw on her mouse. "No hard feelins, kid," he told her chivalrously.

He polished off the mouse, and she watched silently until the last tasty bit of it had disappeared. Gradually, a deep ancestral memory stirred within her; a strangely soft expression filled her yellow eyes. As he gave his face an after-luncheon wash, she began to purr; and when he rose and stretched himself she rumbled, "My, you're big and strong! I think you're wonderful!"

"Y' betcha boots," said Gustav-Adolf smugly. "That's how come I kin beatcha up with one paw tied behind m' back." He turned away. "Be good," he called back as he swaggered off, "and mebbe I'll make a pass atcha."

The balance of his day was as successful as its start. He attacked and scattered several groups of tiny tomcats. He met and vanquished three more females nearly'as large as Lambie-pie, and captured two more mice, which he devoured at once. Feeling full and comfortable, he made his way back to the Captain's quarters.

In the anteroom, Papa Schimmelhorn had not stirred from the edge of the assembled cots. On a stool before him reposed a bowl of the same gruel Gustav-Adolf had turned down so contemptuously, and he was gazing at it with dull nausea even though Tuptup, across the room, was gulping his own portion greedily.

Gustav-Adolf's heart was touched. Leaping to his master's lap, he said hoarsely, "Look, chum, this joint's full of mice. Nice, fat ones! Want me to catch you one?"

But Papa Schimmelhorn, hearing only a few mrrows, did not accept his offer. He kept on staring at the gruel, and presently a solitary tear dropped into it with a thin, shrimpy splash.

Though these events were to have far-reaching and profound effects, at the time they appeared momentous only to Gustav-Adolf and the feline microcosm in which he found himself. Papa Schimmelhorn did not profit by his example — he and the Beetlegoosian women continued to regard each other with fear and loathing. His diet improved, but only because the Mother-Empress, taking pity on his misery, occasionally sent him scraps and leavings from the rich meats that graced ner table. And his boredom was sometimes tempered by conversation, but only because Tuptup, finally realizing the impossibility of escape, set about teaching him the simple dialect spoken by Beetlegoosian men.

Tuptup's frames of reference were very different from his roommate's. Even after he had conquered his initial fear to the point of being able to keep his dinner down, their intercourse was not without its strenuous moments, and one of these occurred when the ship was slightly more than three weeks on the way.

For some hours, Tuptup's nose had been out of joint. He had spent several minutes teaching Papa Schimmelhorn a game called yuf, a Beetlegoosian version of tick-tack-toe, and Papa Schimmelhorn, quite abstractedly, had beaten him half a hundred games in a row. Then, adding injury to this insult, he had pestered him with silly questions about the ship and how it ran. Tuptup had told him peevishly that, for goodness' sake!, it was the ifk that pulled it here and there, as everybody knew; and no, they weren't machines because they grew in pots and sort of quivered all the time; and anyhow he didn't want to talk about such dry old things just when he'd thought about the most exciting frock, and how that new Commander's horrid second husband would turn pea-green with envy at the sight of it.

Papa Schimmelhorn was by no means his brave old self. His cheeks were drawn; a dismal and disoriented look was in his eye. Nevertheless, he could not let remarks like these pass unchallenged. "Chunior," he said, staring at Tuptup in renewed dismay, "vot haff die big palooka vomen done to you? You are nodt men; you are chust lidtle vorms."

Tuptup drew back, shocked.   "My!" he exclaimed. "What a dreadful thing to say. I'll never, never speak to you again!"

And, for a good long while, he sat there worrying the edges of his ricebowl haircut, picking his nose daintily, and trying to think up something to put this — this unnatural creature in its proper place.

Finally, an idea came to him, and he reviewed it with scarcely suppressed titters of triumph. Preening himself, he looked again at Papa Schimmelhorn. "I came from Madame Ipilu's," he sniffed. "I suppose you're from one of those cheap department stores where they sell odds and ends?"

Papa Schimmelhorn frowned painfully. "Vhat do you mean?" he asked. "I nefer vork in a department shtore. Und vhat iss Madame Vhat's-der-name's, a bad house full mit naughty girls?"

"Madame Ipilu's," Tuptup informed him with a superior smirk, "is just our most expensive and exclusive husband shop, that's all. And I was higher priced than any other one they ever sold, except a few for people like the Mother President. Dear Madame Ipilu told me so herself." He saw that Papa Schimmelhorn was staring at him open-mouthed. "She's such a clever merchandizer, and so refined. But then I guess it's more than you could ever understand, not being a really, truly husband, but just a poor old bargain basement thing for carrying cats around."

Papa Schimmelhorn ignored the compliment. "You — you mean," he gasped, "die Beetle-goosers sell die men like — like lidtle poodle-dogs?"

"There!" Tuptup simpered. "I knew you wouldn't understand. We're never sold at all like poodle-dogs — not anymore. A really swanky husband shop like Madame Ipilu's caters to a very genteel trade. We go there when we're four, and live in sweet little wire rooms right in the back, except of course when we're all tied together for airings or to go to school. You see —" He blushed a little bit. "— they have to guarantee that none of us has ever been, well — touched. You can't imagine just how nice it is. A high class husband shop is a real home away from home. There's the sweetest song about it." He hummed a bar or two.

"I wish I was back in the window

At Madame Ipilu's with the boys.

I was tender and pure,

My sorrows were fewer —

Oh, I wish I was back with my toys!"

Tuptup actually sniffled as he sang the last line. Then, sighing, he asked abruptly, "Have you been altered?"

The question brought Papa Schimmelhorn up with a jerk. "Haff I ben vhat?" he cried.

"Altered," said Tuptup sadly. "You know. I sometimes wish I had. Everyone says it hardly hurts at all, and after that they never bother you, and, well, you're sort of just a pet, and then they have to keep you, too. They can t just trade you in or anything." He sighed again. "It's like they say — there's more to marriage than getting compliments and wearing pretty clothes."

Suddenly, Papa Schimmelhorn remembered how enthusiastically receptive his wife had been to the mores of this strange society. Cold horror swept him. "Ch-chunior," he croaked, "dot iss against der law! Der police vould nodt allow!" A hideous picture came into his mind, of himself, fat, flaccid, indolent, purring grotesquely by the hearth. "You mean in Beetlegoose Mama could take me like der tomcat to der vet, und—und —?"

"Why would the police have anything to do with it, you silly thing? Of course she wouldn't take you to a vet. She'd take you to a doctor, and there'd be nurses there to hold you, naturally. But I don't think she'd even bother." Tuptup sneered. "Not even if you asked her very nicely."

Instinct screamed at Papa Schimmelhorn to crash the portal of the Mother-Empress' quarters, cast himself down in abject supplication, and beg that never, never, never would she permit any such horrible happening. He stood erect, so violently that Tuptup, with a squeal, dived for the door. But fortunately instinct came up against the coldly analytical aspect of his mentality, which shouted just as loudly that Mama Schimmelhorn was drunk with power, and that such a course, reminding her of all his guilty past, could be disastrous.

He slumped down again; and presently Tuptup peered in apprehensively and exclaimed, "Goodness me! Whatever made you act that way. Anybody'd think you didn't want to be — altered, that is."

Papa Schimmelhorn shuddered. "Nonsense!" he dissembled hoarsely. "All — all my life I vant, vith no more vorries, only supper. I chust vas sheared they take me to der vet, l-like back on Earth. Ach, you should see vhat happens to poor Heinrich Luedesing —"

And he went on to elaborate an extremely gruesome and quite imaginary episode to which he attributed his employer's very real infirmity.

Tuptup was overwhelmed. "You poor, poor creature!" he cried out. "My, I'm glad we're civilized. Maybe we can arrange to have it done while you're here! I'll ask the Captain when we —" He colored prettily. "— when we're in bed. Then she can talk about it to your Mother-Empress." He pouted. "But you're going to have to be polite to me, more than you've been, or else I won't."

Gagging, Papa Schimmelhorn thanked him for his solicitude. He allowed himself to be defeated in a game oiyuf. Then he pointed out delicately that it might be perilous even to bring the matter up — for the Mother-Empress, with her undoubted force of character, might very well decide to change Beetlegoosian customs instead of yielding to them. This once again reduced Tuptup to a state of terror, and two more games had to be lost to pacify him. Then, with a serpentine cunning, Papa Schimmelhorn led the conversation away from such painful subjects to an infinitely more urgent one: exactly how did the Vilvilkuz Snar Tuhl-T't run?    '

Little by little, he drew out the small store of information Tuptup had. He learned that ifk came from what Willie Fledermaus would have called an asteroid belt around Beetlegoose, that there was a girl ifk who got pointed sort of at where the ship was headed for, and several boy ifk in great big pots who, by doing their best to get to her, pulled it along.

Blushing, Tuptup added that boy ifk were absolutely shameless, chasing after the girl ifk that way — worse even than that awful new Commander's second husband. And that was why the ifk were cared for by Lali, who was retarded, and by a little man named Pukpuk, whom he just couldn't stand.

"You ought to see the pair of them together." He simpered. "She looks just horrid — the ugly, stupid thing. She's never grown up really, so they won't let her cut her hair, or wear a uniform or anything. And as for Pukpuk — well! He's every bit as ifky — that's what we call people who're silly and just not good for anything. He's sort of womanish —" Tuptup giggled indecently. "— all thick and rough and with big, bulgy muscles."

Papa Schimmelhorn agreed diplomatically that the ifk-room gang sounded extremely undesirable. He tried a few more questions about how ifk were steered, but, soon finding out that he had struck bottom where information was concerned, wisely put in a half hour asking Tup-tup about the husband shop, hinting that he himself would have given anything for its advantages, and generally behaving in a disgracefully un-Papa-Schimmelhornish way. The result of his servility was at least gratifying, for Tuptup, when he finally left to join his fellows for their evening meal, felt comfortably superior to his enormous roommate, and therefore filled with benevolence toward him.

After his departure, Papa Schimmelhorn sat without moving for an hour or so, head in his hands, sighing ponderously. Behind the portals of his gloom, however, his mind was working at unprecedented speed, brewing a plan. When the time came for him to rise, pick up Gustav-Adolf, and present himself at the Mother-Empress' apartment for what she disparagingly referred to as "der bowser-bag," this plan was virtually complete. He had determined to insinuate his way into the ifk-room, seize control of it, seal it off from the rest of the Vilvilkuz Snar Tuhl-T't, and, at the ifk equivalent of an extended gallop, head straight back to Earth.

While Gustav-Adolf, who was privileged, feasted in the Presence, he waited patiently in the anteroom. When the bowser-bag, which actually consisted of an enormous covered plate and a bowl of savory soup, was handed out to him, he accepted it gratefully and humbly, and finally, when he returned the dishes, first complimented the Mother-Empress on its quality and quantity, and then compared it unfavorably to her own cooking back on Earth, trying to sound as fervid and sincere as he would have had he been addressing Ms. Prudence Pilgrim.

Mama Schimmelhorn regarded him suspiciously. Her motives in starting her food relief program had not been just humanitarian. In her first week aboard, she had learned enough Beetlegoosian to understand the big girls when they explained the desperate plight behind her kidnapping, and she had needed only a few minutes to figure out its implications. It was simple. For nearly five years, not a single child had been conceived on Beetlegoose Nine — not only not a child but not a kitten. Suddenly, little men and little tomcats alike were sterile; and neither the civilization of their neighboring planet, Eight, nor those of the several other systems with which they were in contact had been of the least assistance to them. Hence the search for a super-intellect. Mama Schimmelhorn realized immediately that the mind they had been measuring was not hers, that she certainly was not capable of finding a solution to the problem, and that her status at least, if not her person, would be imperilled if she failed. She also realized that, if worst came to worst, her husband's scientific genius could very well become her secret weapon. From now I take no chances, she told herself. I feed you like back home, so der subconscience vorks vhen I giff orders — but I do nodt tell you vhy, or maybe you get too big again for der lidtle petticoat! And she had given strict instructions that, so far as her catbearer was concerned, the entire subject was to be classified Top Secret.

Now, Vhat iss? she thought. Nefer you say nice things about mein cooking. Tou think it brings der bigger bowser-bag? But she did not let her cynicism show. Partly for the benefit of the Beetlegoosian officers gathered round the throne, she glared down at him. "Shtand shtraight!" she barked. "Mit der stomach in und die heels together, like in der army!... Ha! Dot iss bedter. I teach you how to treat die Mama-Empress! Now, vhat's der trouble?"

Papa Schimmelhorn fawned as cleverly as a man standing at strict attention can. He reaffirmed his previous compliments. But, he told her, on Earth he had always been an active man. He had always held down his full-time job, and even in his leisure hours he usually was busy in his basement.

"Vhen you are nodt chasing lidtle pussycats!" snorted Mama Schimmelhorn, but to herself she had to admit the basic truth of his assertions.

Here on the ship, however, he continued dismally, he was completely idle. All he could do was sit with Gustav-Adolf, listen to Tuptup, and play an occasional dull game of yuf. "I tell you, Mama —" he cried out.

"You shpeak to me, you say Tour Machesty!"

"Mama, your Machesty, I tell you doing nothing I cannot shtand! All I vant iss a lidtle job to pass der time — efen a job no vun else vants to do." His tones became absolutely harrowing. "Odervise mein brain gets soft. Soon I become chust like Tuptup, und nodt as shmart efen as Gustav-Adolf."

Mama Schimmelhorn's eyes narrowed. She did not think anything of the sort would happen. Still, the chance of her secret weapon being deactivated was one she did not want to take.

"I think aboudt it," she replied peremptorily. "I ask die big ladies if they haff vork maybe for a chanitor. Und now —" She pointed at the door. "Oudtside!"

Then, as her husband hastened to obey, abruptly she commanded, "Vait!" She spoke a word or two in Beetlegoosian to the Captain, who touched her peanut-butter fringe and hustled off, to return moments later with Gustav-Adolfs catnip mouse.

"Catnip in der coat pocket iss too shtrong," she declared. "Meow, meow, meow all night long, efery cat on der ship, so I cannot shleep! Bedter you take avay und giff to Gustav-Adolf, so maybe he eats up."

Papa Schimmelhorn received it humbly, secreted it in the one small pocket of his frock, and back out ceremoniously. He found Tuptup waiting for him with some juicy gossip about the new Commander's horrid second husband, and played yuf with him until bedtime, again allowing him to win almost every game. Then he retired, to toss uneasily and dream dreadful dreams about being taken in a hamper to the vet's. As the doors were closed and Gustav-Adolf was spending the night on a cushion beside the Mother-Empress, the catnip mouse attracted no intruders, but when two bosuns wakened him rudely at an early hour, he was still groggy and red-eyed, and it took him a few painful moments to understand that his dreams had not come terribly true. The Mother-Empress, he was informed, had in her goodness spoken to the Captain, and the Captain, to oblige her, had issued orders assigning him to daily janitorial duty in the ifk room, where they would now escort him.

The bosuns waited while he slipped on his frock. They handed him mop, a bucket, and a broom. While Tuptup twittered, asking him whatever he had done to merit such a punishment, he had the presence of mind to conceal his own delight with convincingly despairing groans. They marched him off; and, as he progressed down the corridor, Gustav-Adolf, drawn by the scent of catnip, meowed loudly and fell in line behind him.

The ifk room occupied the lowest segment of the grapefruit's central core, and the eight male ifk who pulled the ship along occupied eight huge iron pots set in a circle at its center and securely bolted to the floor. A strange tension and vibration filled the air, and the bosuns made it clear immediately that they did not find the atmosphere congenial. They snapped their orders at him: he was to swab the deck, scrub the outside of the pots, police up after the ifk room crew, behave himself, and keep out from under foot. Then they hurried out, banging the door behind them.

Papa Schimmelhorn did not even notice his new companions. He stood there goggling at the quivering ifk. They were vaguely mushroom-shaped, at least twelve feet high, at once crystalline, metallic, and disquietingly fleshy. Power radiated from them, and his subconscious, drawing on its extensive knowledge of higher physics, at once realized — even though of course he did not — that, as they strained after the girl ifk stationed so temptingly ahead of them, they were producing profound changes in the very fabric of space-time. His subconscious did not tell him how they managed this, but it did inform him that the ifk-field not only made faster-than-light travel possible, but also provided the specious gravity that made it comfortable.

Filled with admiration, he patted one of them. "Ach, how vunderful!" he murmured sentimentally. "Alvays luff finds a vay!"

And, from behind his back, a warm contralto voice answered him, "I'm Lali. Most people think our ifk are horrid, but I think they're just beautiful, and so does Pukpuk. What did you say to them?"

Papa Schimmelhorn turned. Lali stood leaning against one of the iron pots, facing him. She was not like other Beetlegoosian women. Her size was indeed heroic, but her hair was thick and golden, she was beautifully rounded in all the proper places, her complection was clear and creamy — all over. Wotan might very well have considered her a pretty little pussycat. Next to her stood a redhaired, pugnosed little man a head taller than Tuptup and much more muscular.

But Papa Schimmelhorn's traumatic image of Beetlegoosian womanhood prevented him from really seeing her. "Vhat did I say?" he repeated mechanically. "I said luff alvays finds a vay. It iss an old saying on mein planet."

She clapped her hands delightedly. "I never thought of it like that! Pukpuk and I were worried when the bosuns told us about your working here. We thought you might turn out to be as fearsome and forbidding as your Mother-Empress, but now I know we're going to get along just beautifully."

Papa Schimmelhorn shuffled his feet in some embarrassment, smiled diffidently, and told them he vas glad to meet them, had lots of experience as a chanitor, and vould keep eferything neat und tidy.

They stared at him — at his beard, his great stature, his enormous hands — Lali in awe, Pukpuk in awe and envy. They asked to feel his muscles. They commented on Gustav-Adolf's size and probable ferocity. And Pukpuk proudly displayed his own biceps, which were dutifully admired.

By the time he had filled his bucket and set about his simple tasks, he felt that, all in all, his progress so far had been favorable. For the first time aboard the ship, he sensed that he was not in the company of instant enemies — and he determined to make the most of it.

Travel between the stars, even at the moderate faster-than-light velocities afforded by hale and hearty ifk, is at best a tedious business, rather like a fair weather passage to India around the Cape in sailing ship days. There is almost nothing to do but make-work (which is one reason there are bosuns aboard a ship,) and everybody gets on everybody else's nerves.

Papa Schimmelhorn, however, remained impervious to these influences, for his single-minded dedication to escaping the possible attentions of the veterinarian drove him to do his job with an efficiency that endeared him to his ifky cohorts, and he devoted every spare moment to learning everything he could about the ifk.

There wasn't much. Nobody aboard the ship really gave a hoot about how or why the ifk worked; it was enough that they provided motive power. Their pots were filled with a semi-porous substance with a meteoric look to it, to which Lali and Pukpuk added a daily ration of assorted metals and minerals together with a little water to assure its diffusion, and this in turn encouraged a sparse growth of Beetlegoosian weeds in every pot. The strange thing was that the ifk did not exert any pull directly on the ship; instead, the field they generated seemed somehow to envelop it and all within it into a special little universe where every energy was concentrated on catching up with the lady ifk — there were three of them — who, to Papa Schimmel-horn's dismayed discouragement, were steerable only from the bridge. He made one plan after another, discarding each as totally impractical, but he did not give up, and gradually be began observing certain ifk characteristics which, even if of no apparent practical value to him, were intriguing.

For one thing, they seemed to recognize his presence. When he touched one of them or leaned against it, it suddenly would start to vibrate more intensely. Besides that, they fascinated Gustav-Adolf, who took one look at them, made the round of all their pots, arched his back, purred throatily, rubbed against their fleshy surfaces, and sprayed them pungently to inform the world that they were now his domain. They reacted to this treatment just as they did to Papa Schimmelhorn, and both Lali and Pukpuk commented that now the very air in the ifk room felt as though it was simply tingling with excitement.

Gustav-Adolf visited them several times a day, bringing his mice to devour there. Occasionally, he brought Lambie-pie with him on a guided tour, and once upset Pukpuk and Lali by seducing her publicly and raucously in an ifk-pot. Besides that, he spent much time in the selfsame pot, playing with his catnip mouse, rolling on it, and finally completing its destruction.

The weeks went by, and Papa Schimmelhorn's plans progressed not at all. However, a number of catnip seeds sprouted in the pot and burgeoned splendidly, producing plants very different from Earthside catnip but quite as erotically exhilarating to Gustav-Adolf. Their flowers, instead of being blue and small, were large and purple; their leaves were green and crunchy. Papa Schimmelhorn took to nibbling them; so did Pukpuk, and so did Lali. The vessel's little tomcats, displaying an unwonted temerity, started trying to evade Gustav-Adolf's watchful eye to reach them. And with one accord, the ifk room crew said nothing about them to the officers, who did not notice them in their untidy camouflage of native weeds.

In the meantime, the Mother-Empress held her daily court, regaling the big women with fanciful tales of her rule on Earth, listening to their woes and problems, and looking at innumerable pictures of their planet — most of which, she admitted to herself, resembled the poorer sort of Southern California slurb set down in the arid center of West Texas. Had it not been for the still heady taste of absolute power, she would have been horribly bored. As it was, she was beginning to miss the cozy gossip of her weekly kaffee-klatches with Mrs. Hundhammer and her other friends, their sympathy at her recital of Papa Schimmelhorn's many misdeeds, and her own occasional triumphs when she succeeded in nipping one of his escapades in the bud. Sentimentally, she began to improve the quality of each evening's bowser-bag, actually going to the trouble of teaching one of the Beetlegoosian officers how to prepare his favorite wiener-schnitzel.

Gradually, as his diet improved and in the congenial  atmosphere  of the ifk room,  Papa Schimmelhorn's fears receded. He began to accept his failure to manipulate the ifk philosophically. His natural buoyancy of spirit returned. He sang as he plied his mop and broom. He joked with Pukpuk as they nibbled catnip. And then one day, inevitably, he noticed that Lali was very, very different from her sisters.

The awareness came to him abruptly. Gott in Himmel! he exclaimed to himself. She iss chust like meine lidtle Prudence, only tvice as big. Maybe in bed she iss also tvice as clefer? He nearly dropped his broom. Then, almost instantly, a vision of the wicker hamper and the veterinarian drove the thought away, and he was plunged once more into despondency. Automatically, he picked a sprig of mutant catnip and began to munch it, and presently the vision, though it did not quite disappear, began to lose its force. As he again applied the broom, the likelihood of Mama Schimmelhorn subjecting him to such a fate began to seem more and more remote, and Lali's sumptuous curves to glow even more enticingly. For some hours then, the struggle between foretaste and foreboding continued to perturb him, with foretaste — reinforced by periodic nibbles at the catnip — eventually prevailing.

Before the bosuns escorted him off duty for the day, Papa Schimmelhorn had whispered sweetly into Lali's ear, had pinched and patted her invitingly round bottom at least twice, and had taken one or two other minor liberties. Lali, whose cultural background had not included huge, bearded, aggressive men, squealed coyly and fled behind an ifk-pot on each occasion, but it was obvious that his advances had not been actively resented. Her pulse and respiration definitely had quickened, and her temperature certainly had risen.

Feeling very much his old self again, Papa Schimmelhorn took special care to be more than ordinarily subservient to the Mother-Empress at handout time, and he prepared himself for bed by chewing a few tasty catnip leaves. His dreams, when finally he fell asleep, would have done credit to a much younger man in a much more secure environment—to the point where several times poor Tuptup wakened in alarm, thinking that the horrid new commander had burst into his bedchamber to deflower him.

On the morrow, he resumed his new campaign, proceeding tactfully and delicately to avoid alarming the young lady. He felt only minor twinges of his former fear, and these were invariably dispelled by a bite or two of catnip. "Wunderbar!" he would remark to Gustav-Adolf on these occasions. "Vhat a pity ve do nodt haff on Earth for poor old Heinrich!" However, he was much too preoccupied even to suspect the full power of what he had inadvertently created.

Almost a week went by before he was able to kiss Lali with all the skill and passion she deserved; and another ten days before he could tempt her into a private cubbyhole where he had thoughtfully installed a smuggled mattress. He timed the tryst for the luncheon hour, when Pukpuk always went up to the crewmen's mess, plied her with super-catnip, bowed her graciously into his bower, and —

And when things happened, they happened all at once.

For quite some time, he had been aware of Pukpuk only as a minor impediment in the background, and had failed completely to observe the very obvious signs of jealousy displayed by his small companion, or the ferocity with which he gnawed his catnip and bristled his red eyebrows. Nor did he know that Lali had made the error of taunting him with her new conquest, and that Pukpuk, consequently, instead of heading for the mess, had made a beeline for the Mother-Empress' hall of audience, swallowing his pride and picking up Tuptup on the way to help him get past any officers surrounding her. They made their entry at a singularly auspicious time. Mama Schimmelhorn, from her throne, was beaming serenely on the Captain and her officers, who were almost capering with delight before her. On her lap, she held Lambie-pie, whom the Captain had just placed there, after proclaiming the stupendous event that had just occurred.

"Oh, thank you! thank you, Your Voluptuousness! You've solved our problem — at least part of it. Look at dear Lambie-pie! Oh, Your Delightfulness, she — she's going to have kittens!"

Mama Schimmelhorn had taken the tidings in her stride. "At home, it happens all der time," she told them, "but here iss different. Veil —" She smiled indulgently. "— probably it vas Gustav-Adolf, der naughty boy! By him, Mitzi Hundhammer's black-und-vhite kitty-cat alvays has six, und vunce sefen. He iss so big und shtrong!"

At that point, Tuptup whispered in the Captain's ear; and the Captain, looking horribly shocked, took Pukpuk aside and listened to his story. She conferred at length with her senior officers. Mama Schimmelhorn, aware that something had destroyed their festive mood, stared down at them enquiringly. Then the Captain, abjectly, haltingly, and with many an apology, told her exactly what was going on.

Having been assured that her husband was on duty with by far the least attractive woman on the ship, and that furthermore he was constantly being chaperoned by the pugnacious Pukpuk, she had never thought to question the assignment; and of course any visit by the Mother-Empress to the ifk room would have been unthinkable. Now, suddenly, she found herself again betrayed. Rage swept away her homesickness, her sentimental leniency toward him. She stood, upsetting Lambie-pie, who fled with a frightened mew. Never before — not even at her first appearance in the snap-net — had the Captain and her officers beheld a sight so awe-inspiring. She raised her black umbrella like a sabre.

"Lead der vay!" she ordered.

She was at once obeyed. Without a word, the procession went out into the passageway. Silently, it descended down one companionway after another. At the door to the ifk room, she brushed aside her escort, and walked in.

Neither Papa Schimmelhorn nor Lali even realized that she was there until the point of her umbrella caught him in the ribs.

"Oudt from der closet!'' came her terrible voice. "Again, anoder naked voman! Shtand up!"

As poor Lali squealed in fear, and while he did his best to get himself untangled, the umbrella kept up its wicked prodding.

"Pull down der petticoat!" commanded Mama Schimmelhorn. "Dirty old man, you should be ashamed!" She caught her first real glimpse of Lali. "So! Efen on Beetlegoose iss pretty pussycats! Veil, this time ve fix!"

With one final prod, she stepped back, gestured to the bosuns to take over, and swept majestically out of the room. The bosuns, assisted by their officers, leaped willingly to their duty; and Papa Schimmelhorn, ungently and in-gloriously, was dragged off to his trial.

The trial was swift and merciless. Never in the history of Beetlegoosian civilization, explained the Captain, had so dastardly a crime been perpetrated. Only during the dzimdzig rite were men permitted even to pretend to take an amatory initiative. It had been thus ever since their lawgiver, Lovely-Madame Mother-President Yeelil Huh — she who had first brewed the shrimpy gruel — had shown men their proper place in the scheme of things three hundred years before. And the Empress' cat-bearer had compounded his felony by assaulting Lali, who was really nothing more than a retarded child.

At this, the Mother-Empress snorted, but she did not interrupt.

The Captain paused dramatically. She explained that she never would be so presumptuous as to recommend a proper punishment. However, she declared, if any of their own men ever so much as contemplated such a deed, purely as a precautionary measure she would at once have him altered.

Papa Schimmelhorn's knowledge of the language of the master sex was still imperfect, but this he understood. He bellowed hideously. He writhed and struggled in the bosun's grasp. He dropped down to his knees and begged for mercy, pleading incoherently and hysterically trying to think up effective arguments. What would Pastor Hundhammer have to say of such a barbarity? he cried. And only think how all her friends vould shnicker because her husband now vas fat und lazy und —

Mama Schimmelhorn paid no attention. Smiling a cruel and calculating smile, she raised two fingers in a scissors gesture and said, "Shnip!"

"We don't have to wait till we get home, Your Gloriousness," the Captain said. "My pharmacist's mate has done it lots of times on tomcats, and I'm sure she could manage perfectly. Shall we take him there right now? '

The Mother-Empress appeared to cogitate, while her husband, still on his knees, wept and pleaded. Finally, narrowing her eyes, she gave her verdict. "Nein," she declared. "For now ve make him vait. He von't go any place. Ve haff him by die —" She broke off with a chilling laugh. "Anyhow, I haff for him anoder punishment... Shut up der yelling!" she ordered Papa Schimmelhorn. "Or else I giff der bumbershoot!"

The bosuns boxed his ears, and he subsided.

"Later ve take you to be fixed," she promised him. "First ve must do something for die big Beetlegooser vomen who haff been nice to me, und who haff troubles —"

Briefly, then, she outlined their problem, repeating its most important points to make sure he understood, and explaining how, though she herself had not solved the problem of Beetlegoosian sterility, her Gustav-Adolf had.

"Und so," she announced gloatingly, "I tell you vhat ve do. All your life you shtay avay at night und chase die naked vomen, nicht wahr? Und I haff heard how you said to Heinrich Luedesing how vunce in a vhile a lidtle piece vill keep you full mit vinegar, nicht so? Veil, on Beetlegoose iss a whole planet full of naked vomen, und you can get to vork, chust like mein Gustav-Adolf. You shtart at der top maybe, mit die Mama-President, und you vork down. Imachine — a billion naked vomen inshtead of chust vun lidtle piece! You vill be mein Piece Corps. I charge a fee, like Cousin Alois mit der bull."

It took some time for all the implications of her plan to penetrate, but when they did the effect was cataclysmic. Papa Schimmelhorn stared wildly at his captors, and his imagination multiplied them infinitely, showing each one uglier than her sisters. He moaned in anguish; he sobbed, shed tears by the bucketful, apologized for all his errors of the past, made any number of unlikely promises; he wrung his hands and tore his noble beard.

The Mother-Empress was unmoved. "I haff shpoken!" she proclaimed royally. "Take him avay. Put him back in der room vith Tuptup, uhd tie him by der leg so he can't get avay!"

The bosuns dragged him off and, while Tup-tup snickered and made rude remarks, manacled him securely to his bed.

*        *        *

The next six weeks were dreadful ones. Every day, Mama Schimmelhorn had him brought in to hear lengthy sermons on the nastiness of his behavior, with vivid instructions on how to perform his destined diplomatic role on their arrival. Every day, she reminded him unkindly of the other fate awaiting him. Even when she passed out his bowser-bag, which now contained only the coarsest fare, she explained that it was just to preserve his vinegar so that he might be a credit to her Piece Corps.

At night, his dreams alternated between hideous visions of the veterinarian and even more frightful ones of the Beetlegoosian women, festooned with wisps of hair and scraps of clothing, cued up from dawn to dusk awaiting his attentions. During the endless days, Tuptup sneered at him openly, bringing his little cronies in to join the fun, and the big bosuns kept him under a hostile surveillance. Even when Pukpuk, conscience-stricken at having been the instrument of his betrayal and downfall, took to dropping in with little presents of fresh catnip and, when they could be discreetly whispered, words of affection and concern from Lali, he was in no way heartened. Days passed before he even realized despairingly that his only hope of escaping the dark future lay in solving the problem of the little men's sterility — and that, fettered as he was, his chances of success were less than zero.

During those weeks, the only person who did not treat him with contempt was Pukpuk, who tiptoed in two or three times a week to cheer him with tidings from the ifk room: how he himself was getting thoroughly dissatisfied with the shrimpy gruel, and how dear Lali was sharing her own rations with him; and how invigorating the catnip was; and how his muscles had been growing and hardening up; and, finally and triumphantly, how hair had actually started growing on his chest, just as Lali had said it grew on Papa Schimmelhorn's.

And Papa Schimmelhorn would listen to him, and munch the catnip, and — until he again realized the hopelessness of his predicament — would feel somewhat cheered, and would try to goose his subconscious into finding a solution to the problem.

The days and weeks dragged by; the ship drove on toward its destination; and the Mother-Empress presided over a court which she found ever duller and more tedious — something she never would have admitted under the circumstances. Every few days, the Captain announced joyously that another of her ship's cats was pregnant; Gustav-Adolf became the hero of the hour; and each feline pregnancy was held up as an object lesson for the unwilling Piece Corps.

Then, on the day before they were to make planetfall, the Captain came before the Throne in a state of unprecedented excitement and elation.

"Und now vhat iss?" enquired Mama Schimmelhorn, a little wearily. "Ve haff more kittens?"

"Oh, no, Your Lusciousness!" the Captain cried ecstatically. "It's much, much more important! We knew you'd solve the problem for us — and not just with cats! It's Lali, that silly ifk room girl! Your Magnificence, she's — she's going to have a baby!"

"She vhat?"

"She's going to have a baby — and it's the first one in years and years and years! Oh, Your Deliciousness — we owe it all to you!"

Mama Schimmelhorn stood up, her Piece Corps plans forgotten utterly. "But it iss nodt possible!" she whispered. "It iss six veeks, und ve vould haff known before. Also, he has been by der leg to der bed ge-tied. It cannodt be!"

The Captain laughed. "Dear Mother-Empress, you're joking, aren't you? Of course, it couldn't have been your cat-bearer. It was that awful Pukpuk. They've both confessed it, and she's going to marry him. We ought to punish them, but it's really too important an occasion. I hope you'll tell us how you managed it."

Mama Schimmelhorn sat down again. Rolling with the punches, she smiled serenely. "I haff nodt said before," she declared, "because I am nodt sure it vorks. Now ve vait a lidtle vhile, und maybe vhen ve get to Beetlegoose I tell your Mama President." And to herself she said, Ach, probably it iss Papa's chenius in der subconscience. Maybe if I am shmart I can make him tell vhat he has done to Lali und der lidtle man, so die big ladies shtill think it vas by me.

She dismissed the Captain, and had Papa Schimmelhorn brought before her, where he was forced to kneel in all humility.

"So!" she said, giving him a look of malicious triumph. "Maybe you hear der news — how dot shtupid Lali now iss pregnant, und lidtle Herr Pukpuk iss der papa?"

He had indeed heard the news, for Pukpuk had boasted of it right away, displaying a most unBeetlegoosian machismo.

"Und you haff guessed maybe vhat it means, nicht wahr? Now iss no problem for die big vomen aboudt babies. Ve do nodt need a Piece Corps."

Papa Schimmelhorn nodded apprehensively.

"So ve cut der budget," she told him with a fiendish smile. "Und nodt chust der budget! Shtraight avay vhen ve land — to der vet's." Her fingers made the scissors gesture. "Shnipf"

Once again, her husband panicked. Once again, he begged and whined and pleaded, resorting to every emotional appeal — and all in vain.

Transfixing him with her Medusa stare, she said, "Giff me vun good reason vhy nodt? Maybe because Miss Prudence Pilgrim vould nodt like? Maybe some oder pretty lidtle pussycat?"

"Mama," he wept, "only listen! It iss nodt chust for me! About die big vomen und die babies shtill ve are nodt sure. Maybe der catnip vorks only for lidtle Pukpuk, und nodt for eferybody. Maybe for too many years die lidtle men haff eaten gruel mit shrimps. Maybe for them already iss too late!"

Ah-ha! said the Mother-Empress to herself. From der catnip maus — so dot's der secret! But she remained silent while he poured out his frantic story of the effect the ifk had had upon the catnip, and the effect the mutated plants had had upon the ifk and Pukpuk and the little tomcats. So upset was he that he did not even think to take credit for the scientific miracle — an oversight which she herself had no intention of repeating.

Finally she clapped her hands sharply to end the interview, and signed to the bosuns to remove him. "Tomorrow, vhen ve get to Beetlegoose, ve see!" she announced ominously. "Maybe die Mama-President iss grateful, und giffs me a nice testimonial dinner."

Actually, the festivities honoring Mama Schimmelhorn and her scientific triumph lasted a full week. They opened with a Banquet of State at which long speeches were made by the Mother-President, a brawny lady with a harsh bass voice and more than the ghost of a moustache, and by many representatives of Beetlegoosian officialdom. The Captain, newly promoted to Flag rank, was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Yeelil Huh for discovering and bringing back the agent of their salvation, and decorations were bestowed on all her officers. Gifts and honors without number were showered upon the Mother-Empress, chief of them being a large oil painting of a demure little man with nothing on stepping out of a seashell on the shore. (This, Mama Schimmelhorn gave to the Salvation Army shortly after her return, and it ended up over the entrance to the men's room in a gay bar not far from Pennsylvania Avenue.) In an unprecedented public ceremony, Lali and Pukpuk were joined in matrimony, and Lali was formally declared to have at last achieved full womanhood.

Then Pukpuk and Papa Schimmelhorn and Gustav-Adolf were placed on exhibition for three days in the window of Madame Ipilu's swank husband shop, much to the chagrin of poor Tup-tup. Pukpuk did his best to reassure his large benefactor, telling him that the Mother-Empress had told the Captain definitely that she had no intention of subjecting him to surgery, but Papa Schimmelhorn would not be comforted until, on the third day, she herself informed him that, if he promised to be good as gold, he could return to Earth intact.

And Papa Schimmelhorn was very good indeed. He ignored completely the few pretty pussycats who, once in a long while, showed their faces in the surging throngs of huge women and wistful little men who came from every quarter of the planet to stare at him. He maintained an austere visage and practically sat on his hands on the occasions when Lali was brought in to greet her bridegroom. But after nightfall, when the window curtains had been drawn by Madame Ipilu in person, and once he and Pukpuk had eaten their supper, not of shrimpy gruel but of real woman's food — a point the Mother-Empress had generously insisted on — he revealed that even his harrowing experiences could not really quell his spirit.

"You listen, chunior," he would tell Pukpuk, as they munched their crispy catnip in the dark. "Eferything iss nodt ofer. Vhen I go back to Earth, you do chust like I say, und eat der catnip, und giff a lidtle maybe to your Lali. But you must safe die seeds und plant them eferyvhere. For Beetlegoose, you must become der Chonny Catnipseed. A few veeks und things begin to change, und someday maybe efen Tuptup gets hairs on der chest. But you be careful. Vhen die big ladies find out vhat really happens, und dot die men all are becoming men again, probably they try to make catnip — how do you say it? — a subscription drug, so you get it only vhen they vant a baby. Und dot vay nobody has any fun."

Then he and Pukpuk would laugh themselves to sleep at the thought of their subversion and of the revolution it would bring about.

After four days, Mama Schimmelhorn found herself thoroughly bored with the unending round of dull entertainments. By the fifth, she decided she'd go crazy if she had to attend even one more noisy doe party where little men did naughty things which reminded her of a summer she had spent as house-mother at a school for more-or-less delinquent urchins. On the sixth, she announced her inflexible intention of returning home forthwith, which of course meant that she had to endure one more banquet (at which she presented the world's most perfect cuckoo clock to the Mother-President with her compliments.) And on the seventh, she and her entourage reembarked on the Vilvilkuz Snar Tuhl Y't.

The return trip took less than half the time the outward journey had. The ifk achieved an almost unbelievable acceleration, aided perhaps by the fact that each of their pots was now lush with mutant catnip. Lali and Pukpuk were still in charge of them, Lali having been given the brand new rank of Chief Engineer, suggested by the Mother Empress as a reward for her approaching labor; and Papa Schimmelhorn, though he was still strictly confined to quarters, was allowed to entertain the happy couple under proper supervision.

Finally there came a day when the bosuns brought him his shirt and pants and jacket and ordered him to put them on. The ship was hovering squarely over the center of New Haven, and at the Captain's orders a lifeboat, rather than the snap-net, had been made ready. The farewells said, and the gratitude expressed, were fervent and sincere, and many an invitation was extended to the Mother-Empress to visit Beetlegoose again.

"Next time you haff trouble mit die lidtle men, don'dt ask for help from Mama!" she declared, flourishing her umbrella as she stepped through the port. "Vunce iss too much!"

The boat descended swiftly. It deposited them just a half-block from their residence, and Mama Schimmelhorn did not even wave as it took off.

"Nefer again!" she declared, prodding her husband with the point of the umbrella. "I haff enough nasty naked vomen monkeyshines!"

Papa Schimmelhorn assured her that he could not agree more fully; and he and Gustav-Adolf followed her docilely through the door.

Shaken by his experiences, he did not leave the house for a good three weeks except to go to work at Heinrich Luedesing's and, on Sundays, to worship at Pastor Hunhammer's church. His spare time he devoted to his workshop, contriving parts for his Stanley Steamer's anti-gravity device.

Nobody believed them when they told of their adventures — nobody except Willie Fledermaus, who was too young to count. Even Heinrich Luedesing did not take the story seriously when he was presented with a flourishing sprig of mutant catnip in a pot, and told that it was a sovereign specific for restoring lead to pencils.

Gradually, though, the painful past receded, and the vital juices in Papa Schimmelhorn's vast frame began to flow again until one evening, as he was nibbling catnip, he thought again of Ms. Pilgrim. "Ach!" he signed. "Meine pretty lidtle pussycat. Maybe chust vunce I go to see her und make a lidtle date."

There was no time like the present. Carefully, he opened the well-oiled garage door. Upstairs, all was still. He started to tiptoe out —

And down the street came a vivid scarlet Stingray, its exhaust giving forth a full-throated masculine roar. At the wheel was a transformed Heinrich Luedesing, one arm around Ms. Prudence Pilgrim, who was cuddling up to him.

At that instant, without a sound, Mama Schimmelhorn came up behind her husband. She seized him cruelly by the ear. Her umbrella caught him in the ribs.

"So!" she hissed. "Dirty old man! Vhere are you going?"

"I guess novhere," Papa Schimmelhorn answered meekly, gazing after the vanishing red Stingray.

"Okay, back inside!" she ordered, with a final poke of her umbrella; and he followed her obediently.

But he winked slyly at Gustav-Adolf as he did so. "You chust vait till ve get der anti-grafity in der Stanley Shteamer!" he whispered.

Count Von Schimmelhorn and the Time-Pony

It was General of the Armies Powhattan Fairfax Pollard, U.S.A. (Retired) who saved Europe from the Mongols and Western Civilization from destruction. But even he — the greatest military leader of the Thirteenth and Twentieth Centuries — could never have managed it without Papa Schimmelhorn's birthday present.

Papa Schimmelhorn took a whole day off from the cuckoo clock factory to put the finishing touches on that present. Full of the joy of giving, he sang as he worked away, adjusting the handlebars, fussing with the sprockets, tightening a bolt here and a nut there. Finally, when everything mechanical had been completed, he buckled a brand new imitation-leather tool kit to the seat and stood back to admire his handiwork.

"Ach, ja!" he whispered, stroking his huge gray beard soberly. "Papa, you are a chenius! Und now chust vun more thing —"

He picked up a freshly painted, dappled hobbyhorse head. It was decidedly impressionistic and rather wild-eyed, but its crest was adorned with genuine horsehair. This he fastened to the frame ahead of the handlebars. Then, behind the seat, he added a horsehair ponytail. Finally, lifting the device with one gigantic hand, he carried it up to the living room, where his wife was sitting very stiffly in a straight-backed chair, knitting.

"See!" he exclaimed, as he set it down in front of her. "Is it not beauditful?"

Mama Schimmelhorn, whose countenance often reminded people of the less optimistic passages in the Book of Revelation, regarded him without enthusiasm. "You haff shpoiled a bicycle," she observed quite accurately.

Papa Schimmelhorn was hurt. "It iss not shpoiled," he protested. "I haff die vheels remofed, und made instead four feet vith inzulators. It iss now a time machine."

His wife rose menacingly. Her black dress crackling, she advanced upon him. "A time machine?" she hissed. "So you can maybe make more gnurrs come from der voodvork out to eat up people's trousers? So you, at eighty years, can maybe run avay, und shtay up late at night vith naked girls? Ha! This time you do not get avay vith! I am too shmart!"

Papa Schimmelhorn retreated, blushing at her obvious reference to the episode which had started his friendship with the general. "Nein, nein! Mama, listen! It iss only for der soldier boy I make this time machine! He iss not happy, Mama. They haff made him retire because he beliefes in cafalry. So now I fix. On my machine, he can go back vhere iss plenty of horses — Vaterloo! Chulius Caesar! Bulls Run! Only listen —"

Opening a triangular wooden box attached to the crossbar, he exhibited a singular mess — coils, cogs, gears, a large horseshoe magnet painted red, a big brass escapement, and something that looked like an L-shaped chunk of broken beer bottle. He pointed out how this last object revolved briskly when the pedals were pushed.

"My time machine," he bragged, "iss better than any oder time machine. It iss cheaper. It iss also simpler, so a child can operate."

He might have added that he had succeeded in building it exactly two hundred and seventy-seven years before anyone even began to understand the principles of time travel — but of course he was unaware of that.

His wife was not impressed. "Der Herr Great Cheneral," she sniffed, "iss also an old goat, like you. But shtill you should be ashamed. Such trash! Better ve buy a shtand for his umbrella in der hall."

"Mama, I show you!" he cried out. He vaulted to the seat and started pedaling. "Vatch how I —"

For an instant, both he and the machine seemed to waver. For an instant, they both appeared to turn slightly purple. Then, suddenly, he was just sitting there, smiling foolishly and rubbing his left ear.

"Ah-ha! I told you!" crowed Mama Schimmelhorn. "It does not vork, this —"

She broke off, staring. "But — but it iss impossible! N-now you need a haircut!"

"Naturlich! I am avay two veeks. In Egypt. I shtay vith friends."

"You — you are not gone vun second!"

"Dot iss because I come back chust vhen I shtarted."

"But how can der machine get to Egypt vhen it iss here in New Hafen?"

"Because efery time machine iss a shpace-time machine. You cannot separate. Mein old friend Albert, vhen he vas alife at Princeton, could explain it, but I cannot."

Mama Schimmelhorn still had her wits about her. She approached the time machine and peered closely at her husband's ear. There, on its lobe, were the marks of small — and obviously feminine — teeth.

"So! You visit Egypt, und you shtay vith friends, und — maybe they are mices! — they bite you in der ear vhen you fly avay?"

Papa Schimmelhorn squirmed guiltily. "In ancient Egypt iss like shaking hands. Also this Cleopatra thinks I am a god — such foolishness! Und all der time I am trying to get back here to Mama." He smirked. "It iss vunderful, my time machine! All der vay back I coast, like down a hill, because der shpring iss vound by going there. But you are right. Ve buy der soldier boy a shtand for his umbrella in der hall. I keep der time machine myself."

Mama Schimmelhorn smiled grimly. "Und shneak again to Egypt for biting in der ear? Iss better for der soldier boy vith horses. I write a note. Ve send to him der time machine tonight!"

Mrs. Camellia Jo Pollard stood sixteen hands high and weighed a hundred and fifty-seven pounds. Had she been a horse, these dimensions would have indicated a surprising slimness. As she was not, she had to go in for steam cabinets, small salads, and more or less violent exercise.

On the morning of the general's birthday, in shorts and halter, she was trying to do push-ups on her bedroom floor. Even with the occasional assistance of her cook — who, still in her early thirties, had survived three tough husbands and fourteen years of active service in army post laundries — she was having a bad time of it. When the doorbell rang, she collapsed promptly and gratefully.

"D-do see who that is, B-Bluebelle dear," she panted. "And if it's anybody for the general —" She sighed. "— just say he won't be back till that awful show is over up in Baltimore."

"Take it easy, kid," grunted Bluebelle, striding off. "It's a horse show, ain't it?"

Mrs. Pollard relaxed luxuriously and felt comfortably sorry for herself. Presently she heard noises downstairs, followed by the front door closing.

"Hey, Mrs. P.!" her cook's voice shouted. "It was two guys with a crate from that screwball with the whiskers! You want I should haul it up?"

I suppose it's a present for Powhattan, thought Mrs. Pollard. For a second, she hesitated. Then, "Of course, bring it up!" she called decisively. "We'll open it right now! It'll serve him right for leaving me alone like this."

"I'll get me a claw hammer," replied her cook.

Three minutes later, in the bedroom, they surveyed Papa Schimmelhorn's invention.

Bluebelle pointed with the hammer. "What th' hell?" she grumbled. "A cross between a goddamn hobbyhorse and a beatup bicycle!"

"Oh, it must be more than that!" Mrs. Pollard walked around it, touched it gingerly — and had a flash of inspiration. "Why!" she cried excitedly. "Isn't that just as sweet as sweet can be? Do you suppose he made it every bit himself? I always did say he seemed a nice old man — in spite of all they said. He must've noticed how the general's been gaining weight since he retired. Bluebelle, it's a reducing machine, that's what it is! That's why it hasn't any wheels. And he's given it a horse's head and tail so Powhattan'll be sure to ride it."

Bluebelle, eyeing it suspiciously, began to back away. "I wouldn't touch it, was I you!"

"Nonsense! It'll be much more fun than silly exercises!" She grasped the handlebars and climbed aboard. "See —" Several levers protruded from the wooden box, and she pulled them all at random. "— he's fixed it so you can adjust the — the tension and — and everything." Leaning forward eagerly, she started pumping. Her outline wavered. Both she and the machine turned vaguely purple —

"Hey, wait!" bawled Bluebelle.

But Mrs. Pollard and the time machine had disappeared.

The phenomenon had a profound effect on Bluebelle. For a while, she simply goggled at the place where they had been. Then she inspected it carefully for something like a grease spot or an X. After that, she searched all the closets and peered behind the larger bits of furniture. Finally, emitting a shrill wail, she made for the telephone and got through to the general.

"It — it's me, Gen'ral, s-sir!" she sobbed. "Me! B-Bluebelle Bottomley, yer cook. She's been s-s-snatched, sir! The p-pore little c-c-crit-ter!"

"Mrs. Bottomley, control yourself! Have you the heaves?"

Somehow, Bluebelle managed to inform the general that his wife had vanished, that she had done so on a goddamn beat-up bicycle, and that Papa Schimmelhorn was responsible.

"Have you searched the house?" The General's voice was anxious. "You have? Tsk-tsk, Mrs. Bottomley, that's very serious! I am much concerned. I shall take instant action!"

Bluebelle sniffled with relief.

"I'll phone Papa Schimmelhorn," promised the general. "I wish I could come personally, but they're starting on the hunters, and —"

And at that point, Bluebelle dropped the telephone with a piercing scream.

The time machine was back.

Bluebelle stared. Her reddened eyes bugged out. "My Gawd!" she screeched. "Mrs. P., how you've changed!"

She lifted the spluttering telephone. "Gen'ral, sir, she's right back here in her stall! And boy, oh boy, oh boy! She's dropped forty years and all of fifty pounds! Call me a goddamn liar if she ain't!"

Bluebelle looked again. She saw a long, full gown of green and gold, with an astounding decolletage, lace at the wrists, a figure like a bosun's dream, and red lips, and thick black hair, and wildly beautiful green eyes —

"Whee-whee-ew! She's a lulu!" Suddenly she choked. "Only — only, Gen'ral, sir, it — it ain't her!"

"What? What's that?"

"It ain't her! It — it's a later model!"

The girl dismounted from the time machine, shakily thrust a crucifix at Bluebelle, said something unintelligibly Teutonic, and started to back away.

The telephone took on a parade-ground tone. "Hold her there, Mrs. Bottomley! I shall return immediately! Don't let her out of your sight, you hear me?"

"Yes, sir!" shouted Bluebelle.

She hung up. She retrieved the hammer. She pointed at a chaise longue in the corner. "Kid," she growled, "you just go set fer a spell. You ain't going' no place!"

She seated herself on Mrs. Pollard's bed, where she could keep a wary eye on her charge, who was staring back at her with dilated pupils, and on Papa Schimmelhorn's invention. Presently, the phone rang shrilly, and she answered it.

"Listen carefully, Mrs. Bottomley!" thundered the general. "I have been in touch with Papa — that is, with Mr. Schimmelhorn. He is driving over and will join us there. He says you mustn't touch the — the controls of his time machine. Do I make myself clear?"

"Jee-sus, Gen'ral, sir! I wouldn't touch 'em with a ten-foot pole!"

"He says you are to lift the machine very carefully by the frame, understand? And lock it in the closet till he gets there."

"S-sir, I — I don't want no truck with it at all! D-do I got to?"

"That is an order, Mrs. Bottomley. And don't you lay a finger on those controls!"

The phone clicked off. Muttering apprehensively, Bluebelle edged the time machine into the closet, locked the door, and pocketed the key. "Boy, oh boy!" she addressed the world at large. "Could I use a beer!" She regarded her uninvited guest, who since the phone rang had been sobbing hysterically. "Kid," she said, "it looks like I'm not the only one." She made drinking motions, pointed at herself, and managed to convey the idea that she was going downstairs and would be back right away, and that the girl was to stay put — and she meant put.

The girl sobbed a little more loudly than before, but showed no signs of moving, and so Bluebelle took off down the stairs, found a twelve-pack of ale in the kitchen, picked up two pewter beer mugs, and returned to her captive. She opened up two bottles, poured, and proffered one of the foaming mugs.

The girl recoiled, and Bluebelle realized that some sort of communication would have to be established. She downed half her own mug, making exaggerated signs of pleasure, and repeated a bit of Pennsylvania Dutch learned in her childhood from an aged relative. It was a mildly indelicate and imperfectly remembered verse about an elderly lady jumping somebody's fence, but it did sound unmistakably Germanic, and she thought she saw the girl relax a little bit. She followed up by singing one or two stanzas of Lili Marlene in Occupation German, drank the rest of her own ale, and was pleased when the girl accepted hers and at least sniffed at it suspiciously.

She filled her mug again, grinned, tapped her capacious bosom, and said, "Me Bluebelle. Catch on, sweetheart? Bluebelle."

Tremblingly, the girl pointed at herself, and whispered, "Ermintrude." Then, bracing herself, she took a sip of ale. Its effect was instantly therapeutic. She took a swallow, then a bigger one.

"That's the stuff, Trudie!" Bluebelle encouraged her, following her example. "Down the hatch!"

By the time Papa Schimmelhorn arrived, almost two hours and several bottles later, both of them were slightly tiddly, and Ermintrude — dazzled by Twentieth Century ale and the luxuries of a Twentieth Century water closet — had stopped weeping, only dabbing at a stray tear or two when either she or Bluebelle happened to hit an especially sentimental note in the ballads they were using as a substitute for intelligible conversation.

Papa Schimmelhorn, instead of being safely home in New Haven, had been visiting a grand-niece, Fifi Fledermaus, who had abandoned her career as a lady wrestler to manage a topless-bottomless nightspot near Alexandria — an establishment of which Mama Schimmelhorn strongly disapproved. Furthermore, though Baltimore and Alexandria were roughly equidistant from the Pollard residence, the general's five-starred Army Cadillac had been delayed by a series of petty traffic jams which Papa Schimmelhorn's own 1922 Stanley Steamer touring car had escaped. He had beaten his friend home by half an hour, and as soon as his bright blue eyes spied Ermintrude, he realized how fortunate he had been.

"Ach!" he exclaimed as Bluebelle threw the door open for him. "How beautiful! Vot pretty lidtle pussycats they had in die alten days!"

Bluebelle eyed him disapprovingly. Grampa, she thought, I can read your mind like it was pictures in a adult bookstore. Well, you ain't goin' to get anywheres near this little chick, no sirree!

Papa Schimmelhorn was not insensitive. Entering, he smiled at her, chucked her tenderly under her plump chin, and murmured, "But not zo beaudtiful like my lidtle Bluebelle." He sighed. "Ach, if maybe I am forty years younger, but now it iss too late!"

Damn old hippercrite! thought Bluebelle, but she did smile back, admitting to herself that he really was a fine figure of a man, great white beard, modishly shaggy hair, and all. His shoulders stretched the seams of his hound's-tooth-check sports coat over his orange shirt; his mighty thighs bulged the tight, slightly bell-bottomed, wine-colored trousers he had chosen to set off his Stanley Steamer's British Racing Green. "This here's Ermintrude," she informed him, only a trace of reluctance remaining in her voice. "She — she's the one th-they traded in on pore Mrs. P. wh-when they snatched her."

Papa Schimmelhorn gave Ermintrude as grandfatherly a pat as his self-control permitted. "Such a pretty child," he said sanctimoniously. "Soon ve get her maybe safe back home." Then suddenly he was all business. "Frau Bluebelle," he asked anxiously, "tell me — haff you touched die levers on der time machine?"

Bluebelle assured him that she had not.

"Und Ermintrude?"

Bluebelle stuttered that she did not know.

"Okay," declared Papa Schimmelhorn, "ve go upshtairs und maybe ve find out." Then, Bluebelle leading the way, they returned to Mrs. Pollard's bedroom. The time machine was taken from its closet and inspected, and he pointed out how he had combined two Japanese calendar wristwatches and an old Chevrolet odometer to show the exact century, year, day, and hour of departure and arrival, and how a curiously contrived mechanism could be manipulated for latitude and longitude. "Achf" he exclaimed. "She has come all der vay from Austria, und from elefen tventy-three a.m., August der eighth, tvelve hundred und forty-vun! Such a long vay from home!"

Then, after Bluebelle had broken out the ale again, he revealed that his genius was by no means just mechanical. The fact that Ermintrude spoke a form of German seven hundred years older than his own did not trouble him at all. "Ve miss a vord," he explained to Bluebelle. "Okay, ve try again. I am a Shviss — all kinds of langvidges und dialects I shpeak."

In scarcely ten minutes, it was clear that they understood each other at least in the essentials; in fifteen, he had determined that she, leaping impulsively to the saddle of the magic horse on which the witch had arrived in the great hall of her father's castle, had done nothing more than touch the pedals; and by the time Bluebelle opened the front door to the returning general, he was sitting on the chaise longue with the lovely Ermintrude on his lap, her little fingers twining in his beard, and her delightful laughter echoing in his ear.

Hastily, as she followed her employer up the stairs, Bluebelle tried to prepare him for this spectacle. "Hey, sir," she commented, "that Papa pal of yours sure is a fast worker — you oughta see how he's been makin' out with that bird they sent us back in place of Mrs. P. He's all man, buhlieve me! You ever felt his muscles?"

"For his years," said the general coldly, "Mr. Schimmelhorn is remarkably well preserved."

"Well preserved?" grumbled Bluebelle sotto voce. "Sir, if you was half that well preserved, you'd still be chasin' majors' wives round Fort Bliss, Texas." She hesitated, decided that it would be more prudent not to mention that she was quoting Mrs. Pollard, and finished rather lamely with, "Beggin' yer pardon, sir, fer the familyarity."

Fortunately, General Pollard did not hear her, for he had reached the bedroom door.

"Soldier boy!" boomed Papa Schimmelhorn joyously as the general strode in. "Velcome home! Look vhat I haff done. First I make you der magic horse to ride back into der past, vhen iss lots of horses! Then ve haff caught a pretty pussycat — lidtle Ermintrude from der Thirteenth Century." He burst abruptly into song. "Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday dear soldier boy! Happy Birthday to you!"

Bluebelle enthusiastically joined in, except that she tactfully substituted "Gen'ral, sir" for "soldier boy," and Ermintrude, staring wide-eyed at the general, began to giggle.

Black Jack Pershing, a fellow cavalryman who also had attained the exalted rank of General of the Armies, had once remarked that Lieutenant Powhattan Fairfax Pollard looked more like a horse than any human being he had ever met. This expert observation had remained quite valid. The patrician planes of General Pollard's face, the arrogance of his slightly Roman nose, the way he tossed his mane of gray hair and flared his nostrils as he regarded Ermintrude — all these endowed him with an unmistakably equine quality, an effect in no way spoiled by his immaculate Peale boots, perfectly tailored breeches, and a jacket straight from Savile Row.

Ermintrude giggled again and whispered to Papa Schimmelhorn. He in turn chuckled appreciatively and whispered back to her. Then they both laughed.

General Pollard glanced at the time machine, shook his head as though to clear it of obfuscations, and took the chair Bluebelle offered him.

"She asked me who you vere," explained Papa Schimmelhorn. "So I haff told her you are married to die vitc — die lady who vas caught vhen der time machine appeared in der hall. Alvays iss better for a young voman to be told vhen an older man iss married, nicht wahr?"

"Have you told her about Mrs. Schimmelhorn?" enquired the general icily.

"Naturlich," purred Papa Schimmelhorn, pinching Ermintrude. "I haff tried, but she does not beliefe. She says I do not haff der married look — imachine it, after more than sixfy years! Her husband vas a graf, a count in Austria, but he vas killed two years ago in a big battle vith die Turks — zo sad! Her papa also iss a graf, mit a big castle near Wiener-Neustadt, so I haff told her I am a count also, Graf von Schimmelhorn, because vay back in A.D. Tvelve forty-vun it iss important. This also she does not beliefe, because —" He pointed at the time machine. "— she knows already I am der great magician, und thinks I am also maybe somevun else. But if I am a graf perhaps it helps vhen pretty soon I take her home und bring you Mrs. Pollard back again."

"Hm-m-m," remarked the general thoughtfully. "I am a simple soldier, Papa, as you know. While I appreciate what you have done for me — while I look forward eagerly to visiting all the most famous cavalry actions of the past — this does take a little getting used to. Perhaps we would be wiser not to hurry? Camellia has always been intensely interested in history. She probably is finding this, er, excursion highly entertaining and instructive. I wouldn't want to deprive her of the chance to make the most of it. The count, this young lady's father, is probably entertaining her quite lavishly, and surely we must do the same for his charming daughter, don't you agree?"

Papa Schimmelhorn exchanged a few words with Ermintrude. "She says her papa thinks maybe Mrs. Pollard iss a Tatar shpy, but he perhaps vill not torture her because he vants der magic horse to bring his Ermintrude back."

"Torture her?" exclaimed the general. "Why, that's unthinkable!"

"Not for Tatar shpies in tvelve hundred und forty-vun," answered Papa Schimmelhorn. "But don't you vorry, soldier boy. I think she maybe iss okay. Like I tell Mama, my time machine iss different from oder time machines. Ve shtay here maybe a veek, it does not matter — vhen it goes back, it can go to exactly vhen it shtarted. Mrs. Pollard vill not know it has been avay vun second."

"Well, anyhow," said General Pollard, "it is a great relief to me to know that no harm is going to come to her. So why don't we just lock the machine up again, and Ermintrude can be our guest here for a few days? We can, well, show her all the sights of the Twentieth Century, and —"

He broke off as Bluebelle snorted impolitely.

"Soldier boy," said Papa Schimmelhorn, "you haff forgotten vun shmall thing. Your vife iss in der Thirteenth Century, but Mama shtill iss in New Hafen, here und now." He shook his head. "Besides, poor Ermintrude iss vorried about her papa und eferybody there. She has asked me if I am somevun called a — how does she say? — a Priester —"

"A what?"

"A—" He hesitated. He exchanged a word or two with Ermintrude. "Nein, she says a Presbyter — somebody called Presbyter Johannes, a great king who comes on der magic horse to chase avay die Turks und Tatars, because now outsider der castle die Tatars burn und loot und rape."

Suddenly General Pollard's eyes were no longer fixed on Ermintrude. "Presbyter Johannes!" he cried out. "That was the German form of Prester John — the mythical Christian monarch of the East!" He leaped abruptly to his feet. "Millions of medieval Europeans believed he'd rescue them from the barbarians."

Papa Schimmelhorn winked. "Maybe in der Thirteenth Century I could be for a lidtle vhile a great king. But I am modest — it iss maybe better for die lidtle pussycats if I am only a great magician und Graf von Schimmelhorn."

"Pussycats!" The general snorted his impatience. "What year did she say she comes from?"

"Tvelve hundred und forty-vun."

"What month was it?"

"August. It iss not yet qvite September."

"My God!" the general gasped. "Do you know what this may mean? All authorities agree the Mongols broke off their invasion in the Spring. Ogatai, their Great Khan, was dead, and their law required that they return immediately to choose a new one. Subutai, their ranking general, insisted on it. Long before August they were gone. Papa, if what she says is true, something's badly wrong! Back there, seven hundred years ago, Western Civilization is imperiled. Ask her if she is completely sure!"

Ermintrude became deadly serious. She began to sob once more.

"She iss qvite sure," translated Papa Schimmelhorn. "Die Mongols haff surrounded Vienna und Viener-Neustadt, und Drachendonnerfels, her papa's castle. Dot iss vhy he thinks maybe Mrs. Pollard iss a Tatar shpy. Und efen if der Great Khan iss dead, they are going first to conquer Italy und Burgundy und France und eferything. She knows this iss all true, because her papa, der Graf Rudolf von Kroissengrau, has been told by Thorflnn Thorfinnson, who iss a great man in his own country und a general also, chust like you, only she says shtronger und more handsome."

The general's eyes rolled. His nostrils flared. He began pacing up and down. "We can't just sit here and — and watch Western Civilization founder under us. Never! Those people need a leader and one who understands the use of modern cavalry. Papa, your time machine is a godsend to the Thirteenth Century. Let us leave at once!"

"But my machine has room only for me und lidtle Ermintrude," demurred its inventor.

"Then I must ride it back. She can come with me."

"Soldier boy, you do not understand. First, you must know how to ride."

"I don't know how to ride?"

"Not a time machine," said Papa Schimmelhorn, "efen if it looks like a horse. You vill haff to practice a lidtle at a time, first maybe chust to yesterday or tomorrow."

Abruptly, General Pollard realized that no training manual on the mastery and management of time machines had yet been issued. "There's certainly no way to mount more than two on your device," he admitted reluctantly, "unless, of course, Ermintrude could sit sideways on my lap?"

"How about me?" put in Bluebelle agressively.

"You?"

"Me. Look, Gen'ral, sir, if you go kitin' off to save Europe from them Mongrels, it's goin' to take you quite a spell. Pore little Mrs. P.'s gonna get stuck back there with yer, and stayin' with all them counts and dukes and what-alls, she'll need more'n jest shorts and a halter. She'll need me, too, takin' care of her, and that ain't all — sir, how're you goin' to get by without Sarjint Leatherbee?"

General Pollard admitted, to himself that her points were well taken. Mrs. Pollard would undoubtedly want to cut a figure worthy of him in the social whirl of Drachendonnerfels Castle, and certainly he had not gotten by without his combined chauffeur and orderly, farrier, and confidant for many years.

"And perhaps, Mrs. Bottomley," he growled, uyou have thought of a way to take us all back there?"

"Sure," answered Bluebelle vigorously. "If you can't get everybody onto a horse, you just hitch a buggy onto it."

"We do not own a buggy, Mrs. Bottomley."

"Nossir, but you got that pony cart you bought for yer grandkids. We could hitch it to this here time-pony smart as Sunday."

The general, visualizing the vehicle in question, closed his eyes and shuddered. Then his sense of duty prevailed. "Can this be done, Mr. Schimmelhorn?" he asked.

Papa Schimmelhorn scratched his head. "I think maybe ja. In der car I haff some lidtle copper tubing, about tventy feet. Ve tie it all around, und — how vould Albert say? — zo ve can stretch der time field. I haff to pump die pedals harder, dot iss all."

"Well, then!" Once again, the general was his decisive self. "Let's set about it! Mrs. Bottomley, tell Sergeant Leatherbee to report to me at the stable immediately. He is to dust off the pony cart and pull it out between the stalls. I will give him his other orders there."

"Yes, sir!" replied Bluebelle enthusiastically, banging off down the stairs.

General Pollard followed at a more restrained pace, and Papa Schimmelhorn, laden with the time-pony and with Ermintrude clinging trustingly to his arm, brought up the rear. He paused on the stairs to kiss her pretty neck and listen to her giggle, and then, when the general glared back reprovingly, marched on.

Bluebelle found the sergeant in his cottage just behind the stable, still in dress blues and drinking a tall beer. Rather incoherently, she told him all about the time machine and what had taken place; and his rugged countenance, rendered even more picturesque by the fact that it had once been stepped on by a mule, betrayed no emotion whatsoever at her news. At her mention of the Mongols, he did grunt, "Arrh — gooks!" and took another swallow of his beer. Finally, he asked her if that goddamn old civilian really had fixed himself some kind of time machine; and when she assured him that this was indeed the case, he drained his glass, buttoned his blouse, and stood up ready for the fray. "Now that's real nice," he commented as they headed for the stable after he had left word with Mrs. Leatherbee to hold the fort while he was gone. "Mebbe he can run me back to Ringgold, back in '37. Hank Hokinson — he was the topkick for old F Troop — he owed me pretty near eleven bucks from poker. Got himself killed off before I could collect."

Bluebelle gave him a hand dusting the pony cart, and everything was ready when Papa Schimmelhorn appeared, having located his coil of copper tubing in the back seat of the Stanley Steamer. As he began to putter with it, General Pollard briefed the sergeant once again in concise military terms.

Sergeant Leatherbee listened, standing at attention.

"At ease!" said the general finally. "Sergeant, do you understand?"

"Yes, sir —" Pointing at the time-pony and the cart, which Papa Schimmelhorn was endeavoring to unite, he hesitated. Then, "General, sir," he blurted. "With the general's permission, sir, it just ain't right for the general to be riding in that hickus! It — sir, it ain't dignified. Sir, I could saddle up Mrs. Roosevelt with your field saddle, and you could ride right alongside of us."

At the mention of his favorite bay mare, the general groaned. The pony cart had a tubby wicker body, reached by two metal steps and an opening in the back. Its seats, arrayed around its sides, were perhaps adequate for children. Even by itself, it was scarcely a vehicle for a ranking general officer.

"Papa," said General Pollard wistfully, "would it be at all possible? — I mean, could I ride alongside?"

"Nein, soldier boy," replied Papa Schimmelhorn. "I haff not enough copper tubing, und anyhow maybe Mrs. Roosevelt vould not hold shtill."

The general squared his shoulders. "Our duty to Western Civilization," he declared heroically, "is more important than mere appearances. Let us proceed!" He looked at his watch. "Be ready to move out in half an hour. Full field uniform, rations for at least a week, first aid supplies, side-arms. And boots and spurs, Sergeant — in that century we very well may have to function mounted."

"Yes, sir!" barked Sergeant Leatherbee. "I'll pass the word to my old lady."

"Mrs. Bottomley, please get together all the clothes and trinkets you believe Mrs. Pollard may require. And Mr. Schimmelhorn, if you need any additional equipment, please say so now."

"I take maybe two or three cuckoo clocks, but already I haff them in der car."

"Cuckoo clocks?"

"Ja." Papa Schimmelhorn winked at him. "Dot iss vun reason Cleopatra thinks I am a god."

He went bade to the congenial task of hitching the time pony and the pony cart together with the copper tubing (which now began and ended in the box containing the pedal-driven mechanism) and with odds and ends of leather straps and latigos, which he fastened to the shafts and to a miscellany of loose ends. And General Pollard, after one last unhappy look at the contraption, went off to array himself for his great task.

Half an hour later, all was ready. Bluebelle, in her Sunday best, had packed two suitcases and an overnight bag. Sergeant Leatherbee, booted, spurred, helmeted, and under arms, had loaded the specified supplies into the pony cart, together with a few quarts of the general's bourbon and a case of ale, while Mrs. Leatherbee watched disapprovingly. Papa Schimmelhorn had brought three cuckoo clocks in their cardboard cartons from the Stanley Steamer, and had demonstrated one of them to Ermintrude. Finally and magnificently, the general had put in his appearance. He wore his World War II helmet, to which his five stars had subsequently been attached, and his pre-World War II leather field belt, from which hung, not just his service pistol, but also the splendid sword of honor presented to his grandfather by the grateful citizens of Fredericksburg, and he had not forgotten his binoculars.

He regarded his command approvingly. "Report, Sergeant!"

"All present or accounted for, sir!"

"Very well. We shall dispense with an inspection. Papa Schimmelhorn, you may stand to horse. Sergeant Leatherbee will ride behind you, and Miss Ermintrude in the cart with Mrs. Bottomley and me. At my command, we shall —"

At this point, he was interrupted by a torrent of words from Miss Ermintrude, to whom Papa Schimmelhorn had whispered a running translation. She would not ride back there with that old man — she did not trust him. She wished to ride pillion behind the great magician, who was so nice and strong —

The general got the message, and gave in with ill grace. Bluebelle snickered rudely from her seat among the bags. The general, summoning all his dignity, stepped up into the vehicle and sat down next to her, his knees almost to his chin; and he was followed by the sergeant. Papa Schimmelhorn and Ermintrude mounted the time-pony.

"Move out!" commanded General Pollard.

"Yoicks!" shouted Bluebelle. "Tally-ho!"

One of the cuckoo clocks spoke its piece raucously four times.

Then all of them, the time-pony, and the cart wavered momentarily, turned vaguely purple, and disappeared.

While the Lady Ermintrude had tried to tell the simple truth when she said she had touched none of the controls, she was mistaken, for her gown, in mounting, had flicked at one of them. Therefore poor Camellia Jo Pollard had to endure a difficult few minutes which she otherwise would have been spared.

When she and the time machine first appeared in the great hall of Drachendonnerfels Castle, her consternation was no greater than that of the multitude assembled there. She looked around her, at swords and spears and chain mail and ferocious faces, and panicked. She leaped from the machine, darted left and right, uttered a bloodcurdling cry, was attacked by a great slavering hound, took refuge behind a vast bearded blond man with a horned helmet on his head, was seized at someone's order by two knights, and then was set upon by a mitered archbishop with shrewd eyes, who seemed determined, at one and the same time, to question her and exorcise her. It was in this confusion that Ermintrude rashly made off on the magic horse — which did nothing to improve matters. Ermintrude's father, Graf Rudolf, red-faced and whiskered and mighty as a beer barrel, strode down from his high seat through the crowd and demanded what she had done with his beloved daughter. The archbishop at once cautioned him against being too rud e to a witch who, as they had seen, possessed unknown and terrible powers. And Mrs. Pollard, understanding none of this, and seeing that he was apparently a man of God, burst into tears, dropped to her knees before him, implored him to save her, and kissed his crucifix — which was, of course, the best thing she could have done, for instantly those present were split into two factions, one still afraid she was a wicked witch and doubtless a Tatar agent, the other sure she was a good witch sent by God to save them from the enemy. Tumult raged, some arguing loudly that they should waste no time in dragging her before the torturers, others that they should give her gifts, feed her with rich meats, and otherwise seek to win her favor. Several women shrieked. Then the archbishop placed his right hand protectingly upon her head and pointed out that wicked witches did not kiss crucifixes and argued wisely that any ill-advised decision might not only lose them a powerful ally, but also endanger the missing Ermintrude.

And at that point, the magic horse returned.

It returned dramatically. In that unreal pearly shimmer which is time travel, when the whole universe seems to consist only of the travelers and their time machine, General Pollard had been alarmed by an idea. "Papa!" he shouted. "How do we know there won't be other people? I mean, or things? There in the hall, in the same space where we'll appear?"

"Don't vorry, soldier boy!" Papa Schimmelhorn shouted back. "Dot iss impossible. Und anyhow der crystal in der box makes a vibration, zo efery body alvays iss sheared avay! Also, this time ve — how do you say? — ve try to jell a lidtle shlowly, und chust before they see us maybe you shoot der pistol vunce or tvice in der air."

"See to it, Sergeant Leatherbee," the general said.

"Yes, sir." The sergeant drew his pistol. "Soon as Mr. What's-his-names gives the word."

Around them, the great hall of Drachendonnerfels became vaguely visible. Instinctively, part of the crowd was giving way.

"Ve can see, but for a second they cannot see us," said Papa Schimmelhorn. "Now qvickly mitt der pistol —"

Sergeant Leatherbee clicked the safety off.

"Shoot!"

The .45 roared three times in the hall.

And there they were.

Hubbub surrounded them: the shouts of men, the screams of women, the howling of assorted dogs, clashes of steel.

Instantly, the Lady Ermintrude jumped from the time-pony, seized  Papa Schimmelhorn's huge hand to drag him with her, and darted to her father where he stood, sword half drawn, in front of them.

"Ermintrude!" he bellowed joyfully, embracing her. "You are safe?"

And Ermintrude assured him that she was, that she had been treated like a queen by the nice magician she was clinging to, whom she had thought was Prester John, but who insisted he was only Graf von Schimmelhorn — though he had a magic castle far away where they used fresh water for the strangest purposes — and he was going to save them from the Tatars, and —

Rudolf, Count von Kroissengrau, was a doting father, and he naturally was limited by the beliefs and fancies of his century. But he was tough and powerful, and his level head and high intelligence had, until then at least, kept him alive and Drachendonnerfels secure in the most perilous of times. Unlike Twentieth Century men, he did not automatically recoil from any hint of magic forces; indeed, if they appeared beneficent, he was quite ready to take advantage of them. He demanded silence from the hall and from his daugher, and received it. Then, very formally, he introduced himself to Papa Schimmelhorn, reciting all his titles and the more important details of his lineage.

Papa Schimmelhorn replied in kind, giving himself a castle in the Alps, a thousand men-at-arms, a doctorate in the arcane sciences from Princeton University, and any number of suddenly ennobled ancestors and relatives, including Fifi Fledermaus, whom he proclaimed a baroness. After that, dramatically, he introduced General and Mrs. Pollard as the Prince and Princess Palatine of Washington and the Potomac, and explained that the general was a veritable Alexander, Scipio, Hannibal, and Caesar rolled into one, who could save them from the Mongols if anybody could.

The general stepped down from the pony cart and saluted. So did Sergeant Leatherbee. Bluebelle, whom Papa Schimmelhorn had explained away as Mrs. Pollard's lady-in-waiting, followed them and essayed a clumsy curtsey.

Fired by Ermintrude's enthusiasm, Count Rudolf was suitably impressed. He declared that Drachendonnerfels was honored by so high a company and welcomed their assistance against the enemy. "I do not doubt," he declared, sighing heavily, "that the prince is a paladin of high renown in his own country. Unhappily, my castle now is full of great commanders without armies. The demon Tatars have made mincemeat of them. No, I am afraid that we have more use for a magician here than for any number of great generals. But we shall speak of all these matters later. First we shall feast; then I shall show you Drachendonnerfels and our defenses; after that we shall take counsel. In a moment, I shall have my heralds proclaim you, after you have met those men upon whose strength and wisdom I most rely —"

Ermintrude interrupted him by whispering in his ear.

"Of course!" he told her. "I am ashamed I did not think of it. You may escort the princess and her lady to a proper chamber so that she can don raiment better suited to her rank and dignity." And he bowed ceremoniously to Mrs. Pollard as she was led away, Bluebelle hefting the luggage in her wake.

Then Papa Schimmelhorn and the general were presented successively to the archbishop, whose name was Alberic and who was cousin to the King of Bohemia, to a variety of counts and barons, a Prior of the Knights Templars, several fiery Hungarian magnates, a vastly dark and strangely scarred old man from the Carpathians, and finally, with special pride, to the blond giant in the Viking helm, who — Papa Schimmelhorn had noticed — had seemed unable to take his eyes off Bluebelle and was still staring in the direction of her disappearance.

"This," declared Count Rudolf, "is Thorfinn Thorfinnson, who now commands our troops. He is a mighty warrior from far away, who has been made a baron by the Emperor. He was in the service of the High Prince of Vladimir, until the High Prince yielded to the Tatars and swore fealty to them. He knows all about these Tatars and how they fight and even understands their barbarous tongue."

A touch regretfully, Thorfinn Thorfinnson turned his attention to Papa Schimmelhorn. "Sir Count and Magician," he declared, as they clasped hands, "in my travels I have seen many wonders. I have seen wily Finns with bags of wind to sell, and such as could turn lead into pure gold. But your magic horse is not only the most wonderful of all, but the most useful." His laughter boomed out through the hall. "Perhaps it can outspeed the horses of the Tatars — God knows no others can!"

Suddenly Thorfinn's name and accent and appearance all clicked into place, and Count von Schimmelhorn was reminded of an episode during his misspent youth, when he had followed a pretty pussycat named Ragnhild to her home in Iceland, where for months they had scandalized the community in which she lived before she married a local fisherman and bade him farewell. Naturally, he had learned the language fluently, and now he remembered that Modern Icelandic differed very little from Old Norse.

To Thorfinn's astonishment, he heard himself hailed in his native tongue. He drew back. Then he reached forward and embraced Papa Schimmelhorn in a bear hug. "God be praised!" he bellowed. "He has sent us a true magician, one who has lived in my own isle! Sir Count, tell me — surely your mother at least was my countrywoman? I am certain of it! Now we need no longer fear the Tatars! You and I shall be sworn brothers — I swear it by this helmet which belonged to my great-grandfather, the renowned Halvar Bearbiter! — and we together shall drive the Tatars from this land!"

Papa Schimmelhorn pounded him on the back and bellowed back just as joyfully. He had found understanding Count Rudolf, and making himself understood in turn, rather more difficult than getting through to Ermintrude. Thorfinn, he realized, would be a great help in bridging the communications gap.

Explanations were made to the count and to the Pollards, and Papa Schimmelhorn dutifully translated a short speech of the general's concerning the Mongol threat to Western Civilization and the importance of a really effective cavalry leadership, which he was prepared to provide. His message was listened to very soberly, but with scant enthusiasm. Count Rudolf thanked His Highness politely for his offer and the sentiment behind it, but he was compelled to point out that Drackendonnerfels was a solitary rock in a sea of horsemen and that this Tatar cavalry was unfortunately the only cavalry available.

He escorted them to the High Table, ordered ale and wine to be poured, and accepted a bottle of the general's bourbon which Papa Schimmelhorn presented to him. Sergeant Leatherbee mounted guard over the time-pony and its cart, glaring suspiciously at the four knights detailed by Thorfinn Thorfinnson to assist him. Soon Mrs. Pollard was escorted in again, now dry-eyed and robed in splendor. She wore the evening gown created for her to celebrate the general's triumph over the gnurrs, and a fantastic display of jewelry culminating in a tiara, none of which the Thirteenth Century recognized as costume. Ermintrude led her to the High Table, seated her next to her Prince Palatine and General of the Armies, and took her own seat between her father and Count von Schimmelhorn, whose knee she surreptitiously squeezed under the table. At the count's command, the heralds did their stuff, and Papa Schimmelhorn impressed everyone tremendously by presenting a cuckoo clock to Ermintrude and demonstrating it several times. Then they feasted, after Count Rudolf had apologized for the meager fare forced upon them by the vicissitudes of war. Serfs and servants bustled back and forth with steaming joints, roast fowl, boars' heads, wine and ale — all in the decidedly pungent atmosphere typical of a crowded Thirteenth Century castle, where the principles of military sanitation were not properly comprehended.

Sniffing, General Pollard remarked upon this to his wife. "They certainly know nothing about mess hall management," he told her. "And I don't suppose they'd appreciate my teaching them."

Mrs. Pollard, gnawing at the drumstick of a swan served her by the count's own hands, agreed that they might not. "But anyway," she whispered, "I'm sure it's all organic, so there isn't that for you to fret about. Just this once I'm going to forget all about my calories."

Papa Schimmelhorn conversed with Ermintrude, with her father, and with Thorfinn Thorfmnson, who sat beside him. He told them of the war against the gnurrs, about which Thorfinn promised to compose a glorious saga, and wisely he said nothing about coming from the future, explaining that the land of the Prince Palatine lay far across the ocean to the West. Then Thorfinn, wonderingly, remarked that if it lay even beyond Vinland it must be indeed remote, which removed any need for further explanation.

General Pollard, meanwhile, discovered to his joy that he was by no means as linguistically isolated as he had supposed. In his pre-Academy days, he had attended a very strict and famous private school for boys, where for six years he had studied Latin, at which he had excelled, practically memorizing Caesar, Livy, Polybius, and other works of military interest. Now, when Archbishop Alberic, beside him, addressed him in that tongue, he almost neighed with pleasure and launched into a disquisition on the martial uses of the horse which not only impressed the cleric, but made him wonder momentarily whether, by some miracle, the patron saint of horses had been sent down to them.

The archbishop discussed such questions as whether the Tatars were the Scourge of God, punishing Christians for their many sins, or simply instruments of Satan. The general, bowing to his superior expertise, confined himself to the Tatars and their horses, and how horses might best be used to drive them off. They got along famously, and when Count Rudolf's final belch signaled that the feast was over, if not sworn brothers, they at least were friends.

Then the count took them for a guided tour of Drachendonnerfels and its defenses. It was a mighty structure of gray stone, crowning and dominating a narrow-waisted peninsula around which a river flowed. Its battlements frowned over sheer cliffs on three sides, and beneath them stretched a gently sloping, lightly wooded area where a mob of refugees was now encamped, together with their motley household goods and domestic animals. These were the ones who had been unable to crowd into the castle proper. They came from far and near — Germans and Magyars and Bohemians, and strange men from stranger tribes once unknown in the Christian West. Their smells and noises floated up the walls. Here and there in the distance, the smoke of burnings could be seen, and far away but clearly visible a Mongol tuman riding at full gallop, its disciplined tens and hundreds following their yak-tail standards.

"There they are!" Count Rudolf pointed. "Without mercy. Tireless. Raiding as they ride, they move as far in a single day as we do in a week, and then do battle. When we have them trapped, they vanish; when we least expect them, they appear. They are not demons — for they die like other men. But surely demons must be riding with them." He shuddered. "Come, let us hold council."

As they parted from the ladies, Thorfinn Thorfinnson lagged behind a little with his sworn brother and whispered in his ear. "The Lady Bluebelle," he enquired, "is she married?"

Papa Schimmelhorn assured him that, at least at the moment, she was not.

"Ah-ha!" cried Thorfinn. "That is good! Look at her — clear white skin, thick hair, good strong teeth — and her thighs! Never have I seen a woman with thighs so broad. I tell you, she and I would breed mighty sons! I shall wait. Then, when we succeed against the Tatars, perhaps you will speak to her in my behalf?"

And Papa Schimmelhorn, who did not consider Bluebelle a pretty little pussycat, promised him he'd do his very best.

Rudolf von Kroissengrau held his council of war high in a turret room overlooking his Mongol-ravaged countryside. Present were the Prince Palatine of Washington and the Potomac, Thorfinn Thorfinnson, the Archbishop Alberic, the count himself, the Prior of the Knights Templars, the dark, curiously scarred old man from the Carpathians, several members of the greater and lesser nobility who, having been deprived of their armed forces by the Mongols, had lost much status, and Papa Schimmelhorn, who felt rather out of place because he really wasn't a military man and would much rather have been with Ermintrude.

Count Rudolf opened the proceedings by inviting the prince, as ranking noble and most illustrious commander there, to present his plan. The general rose, declared modestly that he was just a simple soldier who would do his best, and then, at length and with much technical detail, obliged him. He spoke sometimes in English, which was translated by Papa Schimmelhorn, and sometimes in sonorous Latin, which the archbishop interpreted.

"But it is not simply my long experience or my knowledge of the most advanced doctrines of cavalry employment which persuade me that it is my mission to defeat the Tatar enemy. No, my friends! Consider — my noble wife, impelled by that feminine curiosity and frailty with which we are all familiar, leaped onto the magic horse, a gift to me from Graf von Schimmelhorn, and was instantly brought here to Drachendonnerfels! Again, the Lady Ermintrude, perhaps similarly inspired, took her place in the saddle and was at once transported back to me. Who can doubt that the Hand of God brought me here, where obviously I am so badly needed?"

They had listened to him gravely silent; and now the old man from the Carpathians arose, begged the count's leave to speak, and, leaning heavily on his huge, two-handed sword, addressed them in a voice harsh as the scrape of dungeon hinges.

"Great Prince," he said, "I myself have no doubt that your arrival was indeed a miracle —"

Everyone at the table nodded.

"— but yet we must not read the Will of God too readily, lest we read it not aright. From what you have explained of your country's cavalry, I am sure that given time you could build us a force the Tatars would indeed have to reckon with. But you have told us that we must unite the kings and princes of the west and north and south, most of whom, despite the Tatar threat, are at daggers drawn. Highness, even if you yourself appeared to each of them on your magic horse — even then few would unite, or if they did it would take months of arguing. Let me tell you of these Tatars!" His scarred mouth twisted savagely. "My keep in the Carpathian Mountains was impregnable. For a hundred years, and half a hundred more, it had remained inviolate. Sir, they stormed and captured it within eight hours. And when they first appeared, I obeyed my orders from the king and sent my messengers riding the fastest horses in the land to warn him. Aye, they warned King Bela, on his throne in Budapest — and even as they did so the first Tatar patrols entered the outskirts of the city. My messengers only had to ride. The Tatars, in their thousands, rode and burned, raped and slew and looted — and took no longer to arrive. No, Your Highness, by the time we could unite the kings of Christendom, by the time you could train their forces, Christendom would be no more, and the foul Tatars would rule everything to the Western Sea. Your own lands, which Baron Thorfinn tells me are far, far away, beyond any we have yet imagined, may have the power to hold them off — but have you enough magic horses to bring your power to us? Surely we must deliberate very carefully and seek to learn if God did not have some other end in view when He sent you and this great magician to our aid, for which —" He bowed his head. "— I humbly thank Him."

There was a murmur of approval, and sadly the archbishop said, "Highness, more than once we have sent embassies begging kings and princes to unite with us — and they never heed us until the Tatars are at their very gates. Lord Koloman is right. Unless you can indeed bring your mighty armies swiftly across the sea, we must indeed find another way."

General Pollard, on the point of arguing, suddenly realized that the failure of Christendom to unite against the Mongols had not been for want of trying on the part of dedicated, far-sighted men. He sighed and, temporarily at least, filed away his mental picture of himself, with drawn sword, leading an army of cavalry greater than any mobilized since the War Against the Gnurrs.

"Lord Koloman," asked Count Rudolf, "in what way can we prevail if not with our swords? You are wise in the ways of war and of our enemy. What thoughts come to your mind?"

"I do not know," Lord Koloman said slowly, "but if we cannot hope to match the Tatars' strength, then I can think of one way only — to outwit them. That will be very difficult, for they are serpents in their subtlety. Their spies are everywhere. Everywhere traitors lurk to do their bidding."

For a moment, despondency descended on the room. Then Thorfinn Thorfinnson laughed his enormous laugh. "Friend Koloman, all that was yesterday! Today we have a great magician, who has become sworn brother to me, and with him he has brought this mighty captain. Yes, there are spies and traitors everywhere, and so word of their arrival will go swiftly to Prince Batu and to Subutai. They will at once want to know more — remember, they never move without learning every detail about their enemies."

"And what will happen then?" Count Rudolf asked.

Two or three of the dispossessed nobles in the room stirred uneasily, and one of them spoke up. "Th-they will concentrate, and they will storm this castle regardless of the cost! That is what will happen!"

Suddenly Thorfinn Thorfinnson towered over them. "Then you will be killed!" he roared. "Do you fear to die?"

The nobles shrank away, and again Thorfinn laughed aloud. "One reason you nave been defeated and are here is because you do not understand this enemy. Do you think Subutai is stupid? He will see instantly that a magician who can appear in a twinkling on a magic horse can vanish just as quickly! Even if our walls came down he would have nothing for his pains. No, he will try more devious methods — and so must we."

He sat down, and Count Rudolf again took over. Everyone's spirits had been raised, except perhaps General Pollard's, and now the discussion of what might be done became general. It went on for about twenty minutes with no noticeable result. Then, when all were on the point of giving up, the archbishop took time out to pray for guidance, and his prayers were answered.

"Noble sirs," he declared. "In our pride, we have rudely neglected our first duty. We have not asked advice of the great magician whom God has sent us." He turned to Papa Schimmelhorn. "Sir Count, your pardon. Pray give us your sage counsel."

Papa Schimmelhorn hadn't really had his mind on the proceedings for some time and had been trying to figure out a way to bow out gracefully and play games with Ermintrude. Now he shook his head to clear it, furrowed his brow in thought, and, speaking to the general, said the first thing that came to mind. "Soldier boy," he said, "Vhy don't ve take maybe a few Mongols for a lidtle ride in der time-pony und der cart? They don't undershtand about time trafel, und ve show them all your cavalry. Maybe then they are schared und run avay back home?"

While the general stared at him open-mouthed, absorbing the idea, he explained it to the others, taking care to edit out his comment about time travel.

A shocked silence greeted his suggestion, followed immediately by a confusion of alarms and protests, summed up after a few moments by the Prior of the Templars.

"The Tatars are without honor!" he shouted. "They cannot be trusted in a magic cart with Christians! Besides, because they are limbs of Satan, they know no fear — so how can they be frightened off even by the terrible spectacle of the prince's armies?"

He was answered by Thorfinn Thorfinnson, who first held up his hand portentously for silence. "It is true, Sir Prior, that the Tatars are without honor as we know it. And it is also true that they are very brave. But that does not mean that they know no caution. Consider how assiduously they avoid the pitfalls of our strength to strike at our unguarded weaknesses! The course suggested by my sworn brother is fraught with peril, but if the prince's forces are indeed as awe-inspiring as we have heard, Subutai may very well decide that there is more to gain by withdrawing than by pushing on. Besides, have we another choice?"

The archbishop turned to General Pollard. "Highness," he said, "do you consider that this plan has merit?"

The general's eyes flashed again. Once more he saw himself, if not actually at the head of mounted armies, at least in a position to decide their destinies. He felt inspired. He stood erect. "Listen!" he proclaimed. "This will be my message to the Tatars — that when they behold the cavalry of my country and those surrounding it, they will at once take flight! I shall tell them that, as Prince Palatine of Washington and the Potomac, I wish to spare my vassals and my allies the trouble and expense of bringing our vast forces over the great Western Sea, but that if they do not instantly retire into Asia, I most assuredly shall do so — for we too are Christians and your kinsmen! If they persist, I shall destroy them utterly. That is my message! Let it be taken to the Tatars! And Papa — that is, Count von Schimmelhorn — and I shall show them that it is no empty threat!"

Latin is a splendid tongue for such pronouncements, and the general was tremendously impressive. A few timid voices of protest sputtered and went out. Suddenly, a new spirit seemed to animate the room. There were wild cheers, from the Hungarians especially, and a ferocious clash of arms.

"Good!" growled the Lord Koloman. "It is better to have a plan than to have none. It is better to act against the Tatars than wait for them to slay us! Highness, let me carry your message to them."

"Lord Koloman," said Thorfinn, "let us wait until tomorrow. Word will reach Prince Batu and Subutai soon enough, be assured of it! Everyone has already seen the magic horse appear in our midst, and vanish with the Lady Ermintrude, and bring her back again with the cart and my sworn brother, and Their Highnesses, and His Highness' officer, and the lovely Lady Bluebelle. These wonders have without a doubt already been reported to our enemies. Now we need only boast to everyone about the armies the prince is bringing to our aid. If I mistake not, they will send ambassadors to us. What do you think, Count Rudolf?"

The count nodded. "I agree," he said. "And we would do well to parley with them here or in the open field, rather than in their camp, where they can prepare all manner of treacheries. We shall wait. And now —" He clapped his hands for servants. "— let us drink and talk of less weighty matters."

The ladies were escorted in. Camellia Jo Pollard bubbling with excitement at being treated as a Princess Palatine, Ermintrude eager to rejoin her great magician, and the Lady Bluebelle, now decked out in some of Mrs. Pollard's gaudier baubles, glowing with a full-blooded vitality which brought an instant cry of admiration from Thorfinn Thorfinnson.

Bluebelle nudged Papa Schimmelhorn playfully. "Hey," she said, "that big Scandahoovian's a chunk of real male man, Pop. Lookit them muscles. What dja say his name was?"

"It iss Thorfinn Thorfinnson," replied Papa Schimmelhorn. "He iss a baron."

Never taking his eyes off Bluebelle, Thorfinn uttered a string of excited words in Old Norse.

"Say, what's that all about?" she asked.

"Ho-ho-ho! He iss talking about you, Frau Bluebelle. He says he likes you because you haff a big behind, und together you und he vould make shtrong sons!"

Bluebelle simpered modestly. "You tell the lunk with a big Swede like him it might be sorta fun," she said, and blushed a shocking pink.

And, when Papa Schimmelhorn passed the word along, Thorfinn roared happily and swelled his chest until it almost burst his surcoat. Then he and Bluebelle, properly chaperoned by a serving woman, drifted away towards the battlements; and Ermintrude, hustling her magician to a cozy corner, cuddled up to him and demanded that he tell her all that had transpired and how soon he and the prince would chase away the Tatars.

There was much serious discussion before night fell, for Count Rudolf and Thorfinn, the archbishop and Lord Koloman were all agreed that every contingency must be anticipated. To them, the general demonstrated his binoculars, which were then entrusted to a picked paladin who was to watch for any movement by the enemy. Sergeant Leatherbee reported that no attempt had been made by anyone against the time-pony and its cart, and that the knights assigned to guard duty by Thorfinn were still at their posts. Then, under Papa Schimmelhorn's instructions, pony, cart, and all were ceremoniously borne upstairs to the great chamber assigned to him, adjoining that with which the Pollards had been honored, both of which the count normally reserved for visiting royalty.

At the general's polite request, conveyed by the Archbishop, they were left alone.

General Pollard sat down heavily and mopped his brow. "Papa," he said, "I never realized that saving Europe from the Mongols would present so many problems."

"Don't vorry, soldier boy," laughed Papa Schimmelhorn. "Thorfinn Thorfinnson knows all about die Mongols, und now he iss in luff vith Bluebelle, so eferything vill vork out fine."

"Bluebelle Bottomley and her amours," said the general stiffly, "have nothing to do with the military problems facing us. If we are indeed to take Mongol representatives on a time tour of the world's finest cavalry, I will have to plan our itinerary very carefully. We must show them the best Western cavalry in battle, not merely on parade."

"Maybe der Lidtle Big Horn und General Custard?" suggested Papa Schimmelhorn helpfully.

"That is not precisely what I had in mind." The general sniffed. "We must produce a tremendous impact on their minds, so that they will have no doubt of our superiority! I have several battles picked which should do very nicely, but you said you have to have the exact latitude and longitude, to say nothing of the date and time and maps of the terrain, and I simply don't have the necessary data with me."

"Dot's okay. Ve chust chump on der time-pony und go home, und you can look up eferything, und ve come back chust vhen ve haff shtarted, like before. No vun vill know except der sergeant, und lidtle Ermintrude. I ask her if maybe she vants to take a ride."

The general grumbled that the matter was too serious; that they could afford no such distractions. But Papa Schimmelhorn tempted him successfully. "Soldier boy," he said, "I tell you — this time you can ride der pony. Iss time you learn how, und I vill show you. Ermintrude und I, ve ride back in der cart together."

In a few minutes he returned with the Lady Ermintrude who seemed delighted at the prospect. Then he cautioned the general against touching the controls, inserted a small part of the mechanism he had removed as a precaution against monkey business, and they were off. Though it is hard to measure time spent in time travel, it was long enough for the couple in the cart to improve their already close acquaintance and for the general to get a heady taste of the joys of time riding. When they materialized again inside the stable, his earlier sulkiness had vanished, and he not only opened the door of the house to them, but invited them to help themselves to refreshments. As he strode off to his study whistling Garry Owen, Papa Schimmelhorn promptly picked up Ermintrude in his brawny arms, allowed her to balance a small case of ale on his shoulder, and disappeared with her up the stairs.

It took the general more than an hour to finish his researches, and then he spent another twenty minutes confirming the precise details with the Pentagon by telephone. When everything was ready, he had four dates and places: June 18, 1815, Waterloo; October 25, 1854, Balaclava; June 9, 1863, Brandy Station, Virginia; and September 2, 1898, Omdurman, Sudan. He also had detailed topographic maps of each locality and diagrams of the momentous actions fought there.

Ermintrude was rumpled and radiant, and Papa Schimmelhorn, equally rumpled, looked as though he had just eaten a plump canary, but General Pollard scarcely noticed them. "I must ride this horse more often, Papa!" he exclaimed, vaulting to the saddle. "It's wonderful! It's just like steeplechasing!"

"Chust don't touch die dinguses," warned Papa Schimmelhorn. "Only pump die pedals."

They came back safely only a few seconds after leaving Drachendonnerfels, and Ermintrude, kissing her magician, went off to tidy up. The general was elated. "I hope those Mongols send us somebody who really understands the science of war!" he exclaimed. Then he settled down to showing Papa Schimmelhorn exactly where and when they'd have to go next day, making precise sketches so that they might observe without running too great a risk of getting shot or speared or sabered, and speculating on the psychological shock the Mongol emissaries were certain to receive.

They retired soon after dark, Papa Schimmelhorn to pleasant dreams of pretty pussycats, the general to fantastic rides on hitherto undreamed-of beasts, heroic battles against terrible foes, and ponderous histories in which his name and fame were indelibly recorded. They both were wakened shortly after dawn by Thorfinn Thorfinnson and Sergeant Leatherbee.

"The Tatars have arrived!" Thorfinn announced.

"The goddamn gooks are here!" declared the sergeant.

The Mongols had indeed arrived. Though they remained at a respectful distance from those outer defenses of Drachendonnerfels that denied the waist of its peninsula to mainland assailants, their numbers seemed overwhelming, and even General Pollard, at first sight of them, was awed. Each tuman consisted of ten thousand men, and there must have been nearly a dozen tumans. In addition, at some distance a mighty camp had been established, with its vast wagons and huge felt tents, its herds and picket lines and cooking fires.

"What will they do now?" asked the general.

"Baron Thorfinn says that they will wait," answered the archbishop, "and then they will do their best to frighten us. As for me, I must confess that they have frightened me already."

The Mongols waited. They engaged in martial exercises and displays of horsemanship. Not until noon did their emissaries appear — a group of three men slowly and solemnly making their way toward the causeway.

Count Rudolf, the Prior of the Templars, and a Magyar who could speak the Mongol tongue rode out to meet them.

The Mongol spokesman demanded the instant surrender of the castle and all within it, including the magician and his magic horse.

Count Rudolf refused bluntly even to speak to him, for he was merely a commander of a regiment, unqualified to treat with princes.

Negotiations were broken off, and there were more warlike demonstrations. Then another deputation sallied forth, and this time it was headed by the commander of a tuman, and included a nephew of Prince Batu's. Count Rudolf arrogantly conveyed the haughty message from the Prince Palatine of Washington and the Potomac, and the deputation went back with it.

An hour later, Prince Batu's nephew returned alone.  His  uncle, he declared, would send a group of three to ride the magic horse and cart to the lands of the strange prince and see whether he spoke the truth. They would meet halfway between the castle and the horde. Then, if they failed to return, or if, returning, they said that he had lied, Drachendonnerfels would be stormed and leveled to the ground, and every living creature in it cruelly slain.

The effect of all this on Papa Schimmelhorn was by no means salutary. He told the general that he would much prefer to go back when they came from, where a man could spend his time chasing pretty pussycats in peace and plenty; and the argument that he would be leaving Western Civilization in the lurch left him completely cold. It was only when Ermintrude interceded physically that finally he agreed.

General Pollard and Sergeant Leatherbee armed themselves. So, after bidding Bluebelle an emotional farewell, did Thorfinn Thorfinnson. In the distance, they could see their Mongol counterparts already starting out. With a fanfare of braying trumpets the castle's sally port opened for them. A mounted party of the garrison stood ready to dash out and rescue them if necessary.

"Wait until we are perhaps twenty yards apart," ordered the general, "then appear between us with the horse and cart."

"Okay, soldier boy," replied Papa Schimmelhorn, not very happily.

General Pollard and Thorfin Thorfinnson rode forward resolutely, Sergeant Leatherbee a horselength to the rear and beside him a man-at-arms to act as horse holder. The four Mongols approached in a similar formation. As the space between the parties narrowed, there was no attempt to attack them or to interfere.

The general saw that the elder of the leading Mongols was a man probably in his sixties, a man taller than the average of his countrymen, still lean and hard as nails, helmeted and armored in steel and lacquered leather, and plainly garbed after the Mongol fashion, but carrying a gilt and jeweled scimitar of Persian workmanship.

At that instant, Thorfinn seized his arm. "Look!" he hissed. "It is Subutai himself!"

General Pollard did not understand the language, but he was thoroughly familiar with the name. A thrill went through him at the thought of meeting a commander who actually had ridden, conquering, from the deserts of Mongolia to the Danube, from India to northernmost Muscovy — a thrill accompanied by some misgivings. He realized, with a momentary chill, that it would take great cavalry indeed to appear impressive to those uncompromising basalt eyes.

Subutai's companion was much younger, similarly accoutered but bearing also a bow and two full quivers; and he was followed by a broad man with Eastern eyes and an Assyrian nose, who in turn was attended by an ordinary soldier.

Then, on the dot, Papa Schimmelhorn materialized the time-pony and its cart. "Here ve are, soldier boy!" he cried, and waved in the friendliest way imaginable to Subutai, who did not wave back.

The Mongols now approached more cautiously. They circled the time-pony. They regarded their soon-to-be fellow time-tourists stonily. Then cold introductions were exchanged. The younger Mongol was another relative of Batu's, and the man with the Assyrian nose was an officer of uncertain origin who had some knowledge of Latin.

"We are honored," said General Pollard, "that the famous orlok Subutai should show his trust in us by coming personally to view the power of our arms."

Subutai answered curtly that there was no question of trust involved, for the world knew what happened to those stupid enough to betray the Mongols. "If your arms are indeed as mighty as you say," he declared, "then it is proper that I myself should judge them, and not an officer of less experience. If they are not —" He gestured at the horde behind him.

Then each party dismounted, handing their reins to the horse holders. Courteously, the general bowed to Subutai, indicating that he should step first into the pony cart; then he followed, and the two commanders sat down side by side. Thorfinn and the younger Mongol moved up next to them, and finally the man with the Assyrian nose squeezed in with Sergeant Leatherbee. It was a tight fit all around, and the pony cart's feeble springs protested dismally.

"To Waterloo!" the General's voice rang out.

And, "Off ve go!" shouted Papa Schim-melhorn, leaning forward and pumping vigorously.

They wavered; they were surrounded by the pearly shimmer; their Mongol guests, too disciplined to show any signs of fear, still glanced around them apprehensively.

Then the world formed again around them, a green world full of the memories of recent rain — and of thunder, thunder in the far sky, and closer thunder from the massed guns of the two armies contending in the valley to the south.

General Pollard had picked their place and time with precision. It was perhaps two o'clock, and d'Erlon's infantry divisions, moving forward in their dense phalanxes, had crushed through the defenders of Papelotte and LaHaye, had scattered a Dutch-Belgian brigade to the four winds, and were advancing on the crest, where Picton's infantry were poised to spring.

Now Subutai's interest really was aroused. "We ourselves used such thunder-engines at Kai-feng-fu," he commented, "but never in such number or with such effect."

Through his binoculars, the general saw Picton's counterstroke, and he saw Picton die. Then he saw what he had come to see: the great charge of the two brigades of heavy cavalry, the Union Brigade consisting of the Royal Dragoons, the Iniskillings, and the Royal Scots Greys, and the Household Brigade of the Life Guards, the King's Dragoon Guards, and the Blues. They thundered down against the infantry, against the French cavalry supporting d'Erlon's men. They carried everything before them; and then, ignoring their own trumpeters blowing recall, swept on across the valley, into the very teeth of Napoleon's masses — where they were cut to pieces.

General  Pollard had shared his binoculars with Subutai. "Well, sir!" he cried out. "What do you think of that?"

"At first," replied the conqueror of Muscovy, "I thought that they did well. But they seem to have little sense or discipline. They should have reformed and withdrawn immediately, for thus they would have lost almost no men at all, and could have done many more great deeds. Besides, their horses are very big and fat and sleek. Probably they cannot fend for themselves and must be fed like children, and I doubt whether they can endure hardship any better than the horses of the Teutons and the Poles."

This brief critique lost nothing in the translation, but it failed to dismay General Pollard. He announced that they would move on to another area of the field and gave the word to Papa Schimmelhorn to skip ahead an hour or so. When they reappeared, Marshall Ney had just launched his massed squadrons against the British line, charging over muddy ground against double-shotted guns and rocklike squares of British infantry. They watched the squadrons charge and crumble, and charge again and die; and the general, almost whinnying in his excitement, exclaimed that if only he had held command, there would have been a very different tale to tell!

Subutai's opinion of poor Ney was by no means complimentary. "Never," he asserted, "have I seen a commander with such a genius for slaying his own men. Prince from the West, you will have to show me better sights than these to impress me; so far, even with the thunder-engines. I have seen nothing that frightens me and no forces with whom we could not cope according to our way of waging war."

At that point, they were themselves assailed by a small party of mounted stragglers, who looked like half-trained Brunswickers and who were speedily discouraged by two arrows from the younger Mongol's bow, a few accurate shots from the sergeant s .45, and one swift slicing cut of Thorfinn's sword. Four of them remained on the ground, two rode off howling with their fellows and Sergeant Leatherbee got himself an excellent long sabre and a dragoon helmet as souvenirs.

The incident put Subutai into a better humor, and when the time-pony whisked them to Balaclava, he actually watched the charge of Sir James Scarlett's Heavy Brigade — composed of the same regiments which had formed the Union Brigade at Waterloo — with approval, commenting that this commander at least was a man of resolution and not an idiot. The Charge of the Light Brigade, however undid it all, and he made it clear that, had Lord Cardigan only been a Mongol, he would have suffered a very painful fate indeed.

General Pollard was disheartened. He pointed out to Subutai that poor leadership did not diminish the sterling qualities of the troops concerned who, under more competent command — his own, for instance — could be expected to accomplish any number of military miracles.

Subutai replied, pleasantly enough, that he doubted it.

The next stop was Brandy Station, the largest cavalry action of the Civil War, and for a while the general thought that at last he was beginning to get his message through, for Subutai watched the charges and countercharges with mounting interest, until finally the Federal cavalry, having failed to take Stuart and his headquarters, withdrew. Then the orlok's critique dispelled his optimism, for Subutai was most interested in the small thunder-engines which so many of the troopers had, like Sergeant Leatherbee, carried in one hand. To the Prince from the West, the prospect of saving Western Civilization from the Mongols began to seem pretty dim.

Discreetly, he took counsel with Count von Schimmelhorn. "I just don't understand the man," he said. "I've shown him some of the finest Western cavalry in action, and he's not at all impressed. We'll move on to Omdurman, and he can watch the British charging through the whole dervish army. However, I must admit that I don't want to have to listen to his comments while we're going there. Papa, if you don't mind, this time I'd like to ride the pony."

"Okay, soldier boy," said Papa Schimmelhorn, feeling genuinely sorry for his friend. "Only remember — chust die pedals, und leafe alone die dinguses."

He waited while the general mounted and then joined the party in the pony cart, barely managing to squeeze himself in next to his sworn brother who, fired with the lust for battle, was grumbling because so many splendid opportunities had gone to waste. He winked at Subutai. "Pretty soon, Herr Mongol," he promised, "ve show you something maybe you don't forget."

The general started pedaling. The pearly shimmer enfolded them, and moments passed. Then abruptly the fierce, hot sun beat down, a furnace wind blew, shots and shouts and wild screams surrounded them, and they were on the field of Omdurman.

The general's map work had been as accurate as before, and Papa Schimmelhorn's adjustment of the dinguses quite as precise — but Omdurman was not a battle according to the rules. Where, according to the histories, there should have been no one, there was a mob of howling dervishes. Two of them instantly dashed at the general with their swords; two or three more did their utmost to impale him with their spears — and General Pollard reacted instinctively. He drove his spurs into the time-pony's flanks and reined — or tried to rein — abruptly to the left. Instantly, the battle vanished; the pearly shimmer quavered on and off, flickering and hesitating; the time-pony emitted a dry, whickering sound.

"Gott in Himmel!" shouted Papa Schimmelhorn; "Soldier boy, vot haff you done?"

Then they were in a different place and time. Night was almost on them; no sun stood in the gray-black sky, and an icy rain was falling. Clearly, there was a war on, but it was a war far removed from the Sudan. In the distance, there was the growling of artillery, the roar of detonating bombs. The threatening drone of piston-engined aircraft sounded in the skies.

The time-pony and its cart rested on torn mud, behind a thick hedge that screened them from the road. A number of dead Germans lay nearby; a little further off were some dead Americans and one or two who, by their helmets, could have been British or Canadian.

The younger Mongols had their swords half drawn; so had Thorfinn Thorfinnson. Subutai, recognizing that something unanticipated had occurred, sat tense as a drawn bow.

"Hey, General, sir!" called out Sergeant Leatherbee. "It sure looks like we're back in France, round about '44."

The general had dismounted. He was staring fearfully at the time-pony's scarred wooden flanks, where his spurs had penetrated to its mechanism. The realtities of his situation were just beginning to seep through to him, and they were by no means pleasant ones. Here he was a five-star general, at a time when he had been only a lieutenant colonel. Furthermore, he was standing in a war zone with a party of unauthorized and very extra-ordinary aliens, when officially, passed over for promotion, he was actually provost marshal at Fort Kit Carson, Oklahoma. Finally, not only would there be no cavalry with which to impress Subutai, but there was a distinct possibility that Subutai and all of them might be permanently stuck there in the Twentieth Century, while in the Thirteenth the Mongols would overrun the rest of Europe. Unhappily, he realized that the War Department might reasonably be expected to take a dim view of the whole affair.

"Papa," he pleaded, with a thread of desperation in his voice, "you — you can fix it, can't you?"

Papa Schimmelhorn shook his head sadly. "Soldier boy, I do not know until I look inside." He opened up the tool kit and took out a screwdriver and a pair of pliers. "Anyhow I try."

As he set to work, General Pollard pulled himself together and surveyed the situation. From not too far away came the ominous roar of heavy internal combustion engines and the unmistakable earth-shaking rumble of tracked vehicles. Decisive action obviously was called for, starting with protective coloration.

"Sergeant," he ordered, "collect enough helmets from those casualties for our entire party. Be sure to get one or two of the British ones." Then, fumbling for his Latin, he explained that here his own people were at war, that behind their lines they were intolerant of strangers and might be in no mood to wait for explanations and that prudence required that everybody be as inconspicuous as possible.

With Thorfinn s help, the sergeant gathered up the helmets and issued them. He also passed out two rifles and a couple of pistol belts. The result, while not too convincing, was at least an improvement. Meanwhile, the sound of engines swelled, and a squadron of light tanks roared past along the road without catching sight of them.

"Are you making progress, Papa?" asked General Pollard anxiously.

"I haff found der piece you broke," replied Papa Schimmelhorn "und maybe I can fix. But I must haff a longer shcrewdrifer und some friction tape."

Haif a dozen attack aircraft, flying in the same direction  as  the  squadron  of light tanks, screamed unseen overhead.

"Sergeant Leatherbee!" shouted the general. "We must get a long screwdriver and some friction tape! Where can we obtain them?"

There was the grumble of even heavier engines coming towards them on the road.

"I don't know, sir!" the sergeant shouted back. "Unless mebbe we could borry some from one of them tanks been passin' by!"

General Pollard was violently opposed to tanks and their employment, and he recoiled even from the idea of borrowing tools from one of them, but he was too great a man to indulge his prejudices in this emergency.

"Very well," he said. "Let's stand out on the road."

They pushed their way through the wet hedge with difficulty and found another armored column coming at them so rapidly that the general did not even notice that Subutai and Thorfinn Thorfinnson had followed them.

Bravely, he stepped out into the road, and held up his right hand. At first, the leading tank seemed sure to run him down, but he stood his ground. Then, with grinding gears and clashing tracks, it slowed and halted. In its turret stood an extremely angry officer.

"YOU GODDAMN IDIOT!" he roared. "What the goddamn hell do you think you're —" He broke off. He peered intently through the gloom at General Pollard's equine countenance, at the five stars on his helmet.

"POLLY!" yelled George S. Patton, Jr. "Jesus Christ, what won't they think of next? I never thought I'd see the day when you'd outrank me!"

He saluted, and General Pollard returned the salute with precision.

"What the hell are you doing out here, Polly?" Patton asked, shaking his head unbelievingly, and staring at Subutai, now decked out in a U.S. issue helmet and pistol belt. "Who's this you've got with you — Genghis Khan?"

General Pollard suddenly had a hideous vision of George S. Patton seeing the time-pony and its wicker pony cart and meeting Papa Schimmelhorn. "I'm on a secret mission, George!" he snapped. "A mission of the utmost urgency, with — with our allies. Our vehicle has broken down, and we require a long screwdriver and some friction tape. With these we can make our own repairs."

Patton regarded them suspiciously. "Looks mighty queer to me," he said, and hesitated. Then, "By God, isn't that Leatherbee?" he asked.

Sergeant Leatherbee snapped to attention. "Sure good to see you, sir, and with your three stars!"

"And I'm glad to see that you've made master, Leatherbee." Patton laughed, looking at his stripes. "Never thought you would, not with all those 35-1440's. Well, with you around I guess everything's okay. Take good care of your general, Sergeant!"

Someone inside the tank handed up a long screwdriver and a roll of friction tape. General Patton handed them to the sergeant. He saluted General Pollard once again. The tank's engine roared. They stepped aside.

As the long grim column thundered past them, Subutai simply stood there watching it in silence. Only after the last tank had disappeared did he follow Sergeant Leatherbee back to the time-pony.

They sat there in the rain while Papa Schim-melhorn made his repairs, and Subutai asked General Pollard several questions in a much more respectful tone than he had used before. Was the great cart made of solid steel? He was informed it was. And did the great cart carry thunder-engines? It did. And could it move without men or horses? It could. And did the prince's army have many more of them? The prince's army had many thousands.

Then Subutai said something which shocked General Pollard to the core. "If we had carts like those," he said, "we would not need horses."

He also asked whether the fact that the officer to whom the prince had spoken had only three stars on his helmet betokened lower rank, and was informed it did. He closed his eyes and for several minutes was wrapped in silent thought. Then, very calmly, "Prince from the West,' he said. "You have succeeded. We shall go back into Asia, and we shall not return."

"It is well," said General Pollard haughtily, sensibly suppressing the impulse to tell Subutai that tanks were inefficient, unintelligent, incapable of reproducing their own kind, and useless for such purposes as playing polo and hunting foxes.

Now that everything was settled, Sergeant Leatherbee broke out a bottle of the general's bourbon, and by the time Papa Schimmelhorn's repairs had been effected, the atmosphere was quite convivial. On the return trip, however, it was the magician rather than the prince who rode the time-pony, after settling the controls so that they would return, not at the instant of their departure — which might have persuaded the Mongols that the whole thing had been a delusion — but after an interval of at least ten hours.

They materialized where they had started and found stately deputations from both sides awaiting them. Then Subutai's decision was formally announced, and the farewells which were said were, if not exactly friendly, at least respectful. Subutai presented General Pollard with his jeweled scimitar, as an expression of his esteem. The general, in return, gave the Mongol his binoculars (which were destined, some hundreds of years later, to shatter the mental balance of a Soviet archaeologist who happened to be digging into a mound in Central Asia). And Papa Schimmelhorn generously sent Prince Batu a cuckoo clock, which impressed everybody even more than the magic horse had done.

Within a few hours the Mongol horde had vanished, and Count Rudolf—though urging caution in view of the long record of Tatar treachery — announced that festivities would begin on the morrow and urged his guests to stay on at least for a few days, until the rescue of Christendom could be confirmed with greater certainty.

That night they feasted merrily, and Mrs. Pollard, who had been seriously concerned about her husband, played her role of the proud princess beautifully, even though she did confess to the general that she was getting rather tired of the Thirteenth Century's lack of sanitary facilities. Thorfinn Thorfinnson rose with the ale to deliver an impasssioned account of his sworn brother's cleverness and the Prince Palatine's heroism, and to praise them both not only for saving Christendom, but for bringing Drachendonnerfels its fairest flower, at which Bluebelle blushed delicately. He then promised to compose a truly heroic saga telling the whole story, including all the battles and their carnage, and even Sergeant Leatherbee's generous issue of the general's whiskey.

Finally they went to bed, and presently a serving woman came tiptoeing in to Papa Schimmelhorn and whispered to him to be as quiet as a mouse and led him through a secret passage to Ermintrude's chamber.

At the count's insistence (and at Ermintrude's) they remained at Drachendonnerfels five days, wnile swift messengers reported the ebbing of the Mongol tide from all those European countries they had ravaged and occupied; and each day more and more grandees, of both Church and State, came to the castle to pay their respects to their great rescuers; and every night the serving woman came tiptoeing into Papa Schimmelhorn's bedchamber to lead him to his pretty pussycat.

Actually, the festivities might have been prolonged indefinitely if the great magician had not boasted to the Prince Palatine of the reward he was receiving — which was tactless of him because the prince himself was never allowed out of Mrs. Pollard's sight. As a matter of fact, she had been getting a little irritable. On the third day Thorfinn Thorfinnson had very formally asked the prince for Bluebelle's hand, and the prince has passed the buck to her. She, of course, had asked Bluebelle, who had said, "Look, Mrs. P., it ain't that I don't wanta cook fer yer. You and the gen'ral been real swell to me. But if I stay back here and marry that big Swede, hell, I won't be just nobody — I'll be a baroness. It'll be me tellin' the hired hands what to do. Besides, it's like he says, I got good teeth, and betwixt the two of us we oughta have some real fine sons, if we work at it — and I gotta hunch we will." She blushed again. "And someday we'll have a castle of our own, and — hell, Mrs. P., it ain't all that bad. I was raised with a three-holer back on the farm."

So Mrs. Pollard dissolved in tears and embraced her and did her best to forget that she was going to have an awful time trying to find another cook and gave her all her costume jewelry and a genuine small sapphire as a wedding present.

The marriage was solemnly celebrated next day by the Archbishop Alberic, who waived the ordinary posting of the banns in view of the high rank of the participants; and Papa Schimmelhorn, who as the groom's sworn brother acted as best man, presented them with his one remaining cuckoo clock to hang over their nuptial couch.

At Mrs. Pollard's insistence — she told the general that she had actually picked up some fleas — they left the following day,  after Papa  Schimmelhorn had promised Ermintrude that he would return as soon as possible. They were allowed to leave only after many speeches had been made, countless toasts offered, and innumerable rich gifts pressed upon them.

Then, in the great hall where Mrs. Pollard first had appeared on the magic horse, they bade their farewells. Papa Schimmelhorn kissed Ermintrude and mounted to the saddle. Mrs. Pollard waved Bluebelle a wet good-by. The general and Sergeant Leatherbee saluted and clicked their heels. There was a great ringing cheer from the assembled multitude —

And then they were back between the stalls in the Pollard stable.

"Well," remarked the general, "things didn't go quite the way I would Ve liked them to, but at least I saw Waterloo and Balaclava and Brandy Station — and after all I did save Western Civilization from the Mongols."

"I must say it's nice to be home again," said Mrs. Pollard, "with hot water and a lovely shower just waiting for me!"

Mrs. Leatherbee met them at the side door. She regarded them disapprovingly as they walked in. " Where've you been, Leatherbee? ' she demanded. "You went off with the general, and so I guess you didn't get into no real trouble like that time over to Fort Myers. But you might have told me that you were going to be gone two whole days. I was about ready to call the police."

"Two days?" exclaimed Papa Schimmelhorn. "Ve haff been gone two days? '

"That's right," said Mrs. Leatherbee, "and that poor old lady here waiting for you since breakfast time. Worried sick, I wouldn't wonder, though she has tried not to show it."

Suddenly Papa Schimmelhorn realized that possibly his extemporized repairs to the time-pony might not have been as thorough as he thought — at least in movement from the past into the present. "Und vhere iss die old lady?" he asked in a small voice.

"She was sitting right here by the window just a little bit ago," said Mrs. Leatherbee. "I reckon the poor dear had been watching for you. I wonder where she got to?"

Papa Schimmelhorn experienced a dreadful sinking feeling. "Soldier boy," he said, "I think maybe ve better go out to der stable und make sure about der time machine."

The general nodded somberly, and they went out together.

They went into the stable.

The time-pony and its cart had vanished.

There was no one there except Mama Schimmelhorn, and she was feeding sugar to the horses.

"Mama!" cried Papa Schimmelhorn. "Vhere iss my lidtle time machine?"

Mama Schimmelhorn smiled, and her smile reminded her husband, not too subtly, of the Mongol Conquest.

"I push die dinguses," she said, "und then it vent avay. But do not vorry. Inshtead, ve buy der general a shtand for his umbrella in der hall."

PAPA SCHIMMELHORN'S YANG

It was no coincidence that Little Anton returned from Hongkong to New Haven on the very afternoon that Papa Schimmelhorn finished installing his anti-gravity device under the hood of his 1922 Stanley Steamer touring car. For a week, Papa Schimmelhorn had been in deep disgrace, if not with fortune and men's eyes at least with Mama Schimmelhorn, his employer Heinrich Luedesing, Mrs. Luedesing, Pastor Hundhammer, and two deacons of the pastor's church, all of whom had caught him in flagrante very much delicto with a part-time soprano named Dora Grossapfel up in the choir loft, where they themselves certainly had no business being on a lovely, warm Tuesday afternoon in June.

Old Heinrich, assuming a high moral tone, had suspended him for a fortnight from his job as foreman at the Luedesing Cuckoo Clock Factory. Mama Schimmelhorn, much less formally, had pried him off Ms. Grossapfel with her stiff black umbrella and had then applied it vigorously to both of them. Ms. Grossapfel had ruined her mascara by weeping piteously, and Mrs. Luedesing, mistakenly, had taken her for the victim either of rape or of seduction. Then Mama Schimmelhorn had led him home ignominiously by the ear, prodding him all the way with the umbrella, and hissing, "At more than eighty years — ach! Dirty old man! Now you shtay in der haus. Nefer again I let you loose all by yourself!"

So he had retreated to his basement workshop and to the more congenial company of his old striped tomcat, Gustav-Adolf, whose tastes and instincts were much like, his own, and had devoted several days to assembling and installing the curious miscellany of valves, gears, tubing, solenoids, and oddly formed ceramics which, in and around a device resembling (though only when you looked at it correctly) the illegitimate offspring of a translucent Klein bottle, constituted the functioning heart of his invention.

The job done, he fired up the boiler and stood over it while it produced a proper head of steam. "Ach, Gustav-Adolf," he exclaimed, "how nice it iss I am a chenius! Imagine — no vun else knows dot for anti-grafity you must haff shteam, instead of elecdricity vhich gets in der vay. Und I myself do not know vhy, because it iss all in mein subconscience, chust as Herr Doktor Jung told me in Geneva."

"Mrreow!" replied Gustav-Adolf, looking up from his saucer of dark beer on the cluttered Schimmelhorn workbench.

"Dot's right, und predty soon ve see how it vorks." Papa Schimmelhorn made some fine adjustments and peered at the steam gauge on the dashboard. He closed the hood and clamped it down. "Zo, ve are ready!" he exclaimed. Thinking of Dora Grossapfel's plump behind under easily removable stretch-pants, he climbed into the driver's seat. "Ach, such a pity, Gustav-Adolf! Imachine, my nice Dora among der predty clouds maybe at two thousand feet!" Heaving a sigh, he eased back gently on a sort of joystick he had installed where an ordinary car's gearshift lever would have been, and silently the Stanley Steamer began to rise — six inches, a foot, two feet. He turned the lever's handle left, then right, and the car turned with it. He tipped the nose up and then down. "Wunderschoen! How do they say vith shtupid rockets? — all systems are go. Und now, Papa, all you do is vait vhile Mama simmers down, und vunce again ve chase die predty pussycats —"

In the background, a chorus of cuckoo-clocks began to sing the hour of twelve — and at that instant Little Anton, having parked his Mercedes 300-SL just around the corner, knocked at the basement's garage door.

"Vot iss?" Papa Schimmelhorn brought the car down to a gentle four-point landing, mentally reviewing the dames and damsels who, knowing that Mama was away for the day, might be expected to pay him a surreptitious visit.

The knocking was repeated, more emphatically. "I say!" called Little Anton. "It's me, your grand-nephew! Do let me in!"

"Lidtle Anton?" cried Papa Schimmelhorn, dismounting. "How nice you are back from die Chinesers, but your voice iss different in der accent. Vot has happened?"

"I've been listening to BBC, old boy. Open up, and I'll tell you all about it."

"Donnerwetter, der door iss locked und Mama has der key!"

Little Anton chortled. "Don't tell me a genius like you couldn't pick that stupid lock. You just don't want Mama to get any angrier. Well, all right then —"

In his mind's eye, Papa Schimmelhorn could see Little Anton crossing his eyes preliminary to reaching around the dimensional corner into that private universe to which only he had access. He waited. A moment later there was the click of tumblers and the door swung open.

"Lidtle Anton!" boomed Papa Schimmelhorn, embracing him and standing back again for a better view. "How you haff changed!"

And indeed Little Anton no longer was the callow youth who had left New Haven to seek his fortune when the sudden obsolescence of the Wilen scanner caused the Federal axe to fall, putting an end to young Woodrow Luedesing's dreams of industrial empire. He was perhaps a little plumper than before, but his smooth, pink features showed no signs of acne, his adolescent awkwardness had vanished, and he was attired, not in the rough, ill-fitting clothing he had worn from Switzerland, but in a creamy suit of fine Italian silk, shoes of the sort ordinarily afforded only by motion picture magnates and the Mafia, a pale silk shirt, an Old Etonian tie, and a gem-jade ring of the finest quality.

"Ja!" Papa Schimmelhorn shook his head admiringly. "Chust like mein own son, a chip from der old block!"

"Quite right, Great-uncle," replied Little Anton. "As you know, I'm a chenius too." From his sealskin wallet he took a business card.

Papa Schimmelhorn read it. Peng-Plantagenet, Ltd., it said in English and Chinese, Hongkong, London, Paris, Brussels, Rome, New York, Singapore, Tokyo, and throughout the world, and in a corner, modestly but decisively, Anton Fledermaus, Director of Special Services.

"That," said Little Anton, his new accent slipping for a moment, "means I head up their department of dirty tricks. It's a real tough job, Pop. We're the biggest conglomerate in the world, so everybody's trying to shaft us — Commies, Arabs, Japanese, you name it. I'm the chap who makes sure we keep ahead of them." He smirked. "I manage."

He related how Peng-Plantagenet had hired him, promoted him, provided him a penthouse atop one of Hongkong's most expensive high-rises, and enabled him to learn not only better English but fluent Cantonese and Mandarin. "Yes," he said smugly, "I've changed, but —" He regarded Papa Schimmelhorn's huge stature, mighty muscles, and great white beard. "— you haven't changed a bit."

"Of course nodt!" boomed Papa Schimmelhorn. "Chunior, I tell you how to keep der vinegar vhen you are old — only by chasing predty pussycats!"

"Mrreow!" agreed Gustav-Adolf emphatically.

"Und dot's nodt all — der old man sthill makes new lidtle tricks —" He gestured at the Stanley Steamer. "— I haff now an infention no vun else has made. Vait, und I show you —"

"I know," said Little Anton. "Anti-gravity. That's why I'm here."

"Vhat! How did you find out?"

"You can hide nothing from Peng-Plantagenet."

"But only Mama knows —"

"And maybe a few dozen pretty little pussycats," said Little Anton, saying nothing about the affectionate and informative letters Mama Schimmelhorn had been writing him. "Anyhow, anti-gravity's something Peng-Plan-tagenet can use. Who do you think worked up this big church social Mama's gone to? Who fixed it so there'd be lots of vodka in their punch. Papa, you're hired. We leave for Hongkong right away."

"But—but I do nodt vant a chob!" Papa Schimmelhorn protested. "I haff chust fixed der Stanley Shteamer, und I haff nodt yet taken my Dora for a ride."

"Look, you take off in that thing, and the Air Force is sure to shoot you down. Anyhow, Peng-Plantagenet's hiring both of you — your car too."

"But I haff no passport!"

Little Anton smiled an Old Etonian smile. He reached into his pocket and pulled a passport out. "Oh, yes, you have. You're now a subject of Her Majesty the Queen. Like me. I guess you still don't get it — Peng-Plantagenet can fix anything."

"Nein, I cannot leafe. Mama is already angry! If I go to Hongkong —" Papa Schimmelhorn shuddered at the thought.

There was a moment of silence. Then, "Papa," said Little Anton, "come outside and let me show you something."

Papa Schimmelhorn nodded grudgingly. "Okay," he grumbled, "but shtill I cannot go."

He followed Little Anton out of the basement and around the corner. There stood the sleek Mercedes, painted an Imperial yellow, complete with Hongkong license plates.

"Peng-Plantagenet flew it here with me," declared Little Anton proudly. "But you've seen nothing yet —"

He threw the door open, and instantly a great change came over Papa Schimmelhorn. His blue eyes widened; his whiskers quivered; something began to rumble in his throat. "Pussycats!"he exclaimed. "Predty pussycats!"

"From Peng-Plantagenet," said Little Anton. "Nothing but the best. ' And he introduced Miss Kittikool (which he explained was her real name,) a demure, ninety-five pound, nicely rounded package from Thailand, and a slightly larger but no less attractive Miss MacTavish, half Scotch and half Chinese, from Hongkong.

Papa Schimmelhorn swept them a splendid bow. He kissed their hands. He rumbled nappily while they giggled and pulled his beard and marvelled at his muscles.

"Lidtle Anton," he announced, "I haff changed mein mind. This vunce I go to vork for Peng-Panflageolet. Mama vould nodt beliefe me, so you must leafe a note. Tell her I go only to make a lot of money so she can buy new dresses, maybe a new umbrella. You vait a minute vhile I change."

"Good show, Papa!" Little Anton slapped him heartily on the back. "I knew you'd come through in the pinch." And the pretty pussycats carolled their own pleasure at the news.

Fifteen minutes later, he rejoined them, gloriously attired in a striped blazer with brass buttons, loudly checked trousers, an orange sports shirt, and open sandals. Then, after he had been cautioned on no account to attempt a takeoff, and after his grand-nephew had mysteriously relocked the garage door, he guided the Stanley Steamer, gleaming in its freshly polished British Racing Green, into line behind the Mercedes, having insisted only that Miss Kittikool ride with him.

All the way to the airport, he decorously drove with all four wheels on the ground, and with one hand less decorously exploring those inviting areas of her thigh accessible through the slit of her sea-green Chinese gown. A new and splendid jet awaited them, also painted Imperial yellow. As they approached, it extruded a wide ramp and, while the crew saluted, Little Anton unhesitatingly drove aboard, beckoning his great-uncle to follow him. But Papa Schimmelhorn by this time was so exhilarated that he was unable to resist the temptation to fly the steamer straight into the door, a sight which subsequently sent two of the ground-control men to the psychiatrist.

As they entered the luxurious cabin, Little Anton nudged him covertly. "Would you like to know why Peng-Plantagenet sent us all the way from Hongkong for you, Papa?" he whispered in his ear. "It's not just because of your anti-gravity device — it's because of your big yang."

"My vhat? Lidtle Anton, vhat are you saying? Und right in front of predty pussycats!"

"Don't worry," chuckled Little Anton. "It isn't what you think. Mr. Peng'll explain the whole thing. He'll tell you all about Black Holes and dragons, and how your yang fits in with anti-gravity."

On that flight to Hongkong, Papa Schimmelhorn enjoyed himself so thoroughly that he completely forgot his curiosity regarding Black Holes, dragons, his yang, and anti-gravity and was able to devote all his energies to Miss Kittikool and Miss MacTavish, both of whom agreed that he was unique in their experience; and even next day, during his first interview with Horace Peng and Richard Plantagenet in their teak and sandalwood panelled offices on the thirty-third floor of the Peng-Plantagenet Building, he found it difficult to concentrate on scientific matters.

Mr. Peng was a majestic, immaculately groomed Chinese with gray hair and an Oxford accent. His suit spoke of Saville Row, his tie of Brasenose College. Mr. Plantagenet was a very tall, immaculately groomed Englishman with a medieval moustache, a bold Norman nose, an Oxford accent and a Brasenose tie. They greeted Papa Schimmelhorn with great cordiality, apologized because the press of business had kept them from meeting him at the airport, and enquired as to whether Little Anton's provisions for his comfort and entertainment had been adequate.

Papa Schimmelhorn, recalling how cozy bed had been with Miss Kittikool on one side and Miss MacTavish on the other, rolled his eyes and assured them fervently that their hospitality was absolutely wunderbar. "Chentlemen," he roared, "I tell you, it makes me feel like I am vunce again a young shqvirt, full of vinegar!"

"What did I tell you, sir?" whispered Little Anton to Mr. Peng.

Mr. Peng nodded, looking highly pleased, and Mr. Plantagenet harrumphed with approval.

"Mr. Schimmelhorn," began Mr. Peng, "we badly need your help. Expense will be no object. You will be rewarded richly —"

"Revarded? Don't you worry. I haff a good chob vith old Heinrich, making cuckoo clocks, und here in Hongkong I am hafing fun, zo I am glad to help. Also, bedter you call me Papa instead of Mr. Schimmelhorn, und I call you maybe Horace, und your friend, whose name some-vhere I haff heard before, I call Dick."

Mr. Plantagenet chuckled, and Mr. Peng inclined his head gravely. "Papa," he said, "your years and genius give you the right to choose the terms of address we shall use between us. Now I shall explain briefly the sort of assistance we require from you."

"Lidtle Anton has told you I am shtupid und a chenius only in der subconscience?"

"He has indeed informed us how your genius functions, but that is not important." Mr. Peng leaned forward. "Papa, do you understand all the implications of your development of an anti-gravity device? True anti-gravity is no simple Newtonian force. It bears the same relationship to normal gravity as anti-matter does to ordinary matter."

Two charming Balinese girls came in silently, dressed in their native costume and carrying trays of tiny sandwiches and tall, cold drinks, and Papa Schimmelhorn's eyes and mind began to wander, but Mr. Peng paid no attention. "This means," he said, "that only from an antimatter universe can pure anti-gravitic forces be derived — and that you, somehow, have reached into such a universe. Now, there are three ways of making contact with the many universes contiguous with ours. One is by the use of para-psychological powers, like those so highly developed in your excellent grand-nephew. Another, which so far at least has been impossible, is by generating physical forces vast enough to manipulate those awesome phenomena called Black Holes, which come into being with the final collapse of a star or galaxy, and from which not even light can escape. Black Holes are themselves portals into anti-matter universes, where we believe anti-gravity originates. You understand?"

"Ja," said Papa Schimmelhorn. "Like shvincters."

Mr. Peng did not contradict him. "The third way," he continued, "which actually was known and used in India and China in ancient times, is by combining the first and second, and this you seemingly have used."

Papa Schimmelhorn pinched the two Balinese girls as they went by, but Mr. Peng, thoroughly briefed by Little Anton, was in no way annoyed. "Putting it roughly," he declared, "our own universe has become primarily a yang universe; otherwise Black Holes could not exist in it. At the other extreme, we would find yin or anti-matter universes. Yang and yin, the male and female principles, are the fundamental principles of all creation. Always they must balance; neither must preponderate too greatly over the other. When they are unbalanced, there is all sorts of trouble, from social unrest to Black Holes."

"How nice!" marvelled Papa Schimmelhorn. "Zo now I am der yang und maybe die lidtle topless pussycats und Miss Killikool vill be die yin. Und I haff used my yang to make der dingus vork, efen if I don't know vhy?"

"Precisely," said Mr. Plantagenet. "Very neatly put, old chap. Couldn't have phrased it more delicately myself."

"You have indeed used your yang to make it work," Mr. Peng went on. "You have used it to capture a Black Hole, conveniently a very small one, which now appears to be perfectly controlled within that Klein bottle affair in your car. This cannot safely give us access directly to a yin universe, but it may enable us to build a portal into another continuum, one which in ancient days was in constant communication with us and with which Richard and I are most anxious to reestablish contact, for in it yang and yin are in perfect balance. This portal we will ask you to design —"

"Okay," said Papa Schimmelhorn, "I vill try."

"But before I continue —" Mr. Peng paused portentously. "— I want your firm assurance that no word of our project shall get out, either to the world at large, or to your wife, and most especially — and this I cannot emphasize too strongly because in due course you will meet them — either to Mrs. Plantagenet or Mrs. Peng. They are — well, they're not in full sympathy with what Richard and I have in mind. What I am about to tell you, you may find very difficult to believe. You have heard of dragons, have you not?"

"St. Cheorge und Fafnir und die chewels und die predty Rheinmadchen?"

Mr. Peng suppressed a shudder. "Ah, yes," he said. "But those are not dragons as we in China knew them. You see, dragons came to us from the special universe of which I spoke, a virtual mirror-image of what ours used to be. They are beneficent and very wise, and while they lived with us, in the days of the great Yellow Emperor, all China flourished. Then the decline of virtue, and especially the coarse anti-dragon sentiment in Europe, caused their complete withdrawal. You have only to look at the state of the world today to understand the consequences. I most especially am concerned. You see, Richard and I are not merely conglomerate taipans. For more than two millenia, my ancestors have been mandarins of the highest rank, and Hereditary Keepers of the Imperial Dragon Hatchery. For more than two millenia we have maintained our tradition, with all the appropriate ceremonies and sacrifices, in the hope that our dragons would return to us. You do believe me, don't you?"

"Vhy nodt?" said Papa Schimmelhorn. "If gnurrs come from der voodvork out, vhy nodt dragons?"

"Good. That explains my interest in the project. As for Richard, whom I met during our Oxford days, his motivations is quite as strong as mine. He is descended directly from another Richard Plantagenet, known as the Lion Hearted, and he is the rightful King of England —"

"Your Machesty —" murmured Papa Schimmelhorn politely.

"Thank you," said His Majesty. "Yes, after we became friends Horace explained the influence of dragons on our history. All that dreadful St. George nonsense, and the other horrible myths and fairy tales. I at once saw the role they'd played in enabling the unsurpation of our throne. Not that I have anything against the present usurper, who seems to be a very decent sort of woman, but I do want to set the matter right, you know. That's simple justice, isn't it? Besides, Horace and I have all sorts of plans. We shall reestablish the Chinese and British Empires. No one will be able to stand against us. My dear Papa, we shall rule the world!"

"Very much to its advantage," said Mr. Peng. "But that's beside the point. We've scheduled seminars for you with our foremost scientists and scholars — seminars which, I assure you, will not interfere with your — er, relaxation. They'll work with you until your intuition tells you you have the problem solved. In the meantime, Mr. Fledermaus and our Chief of Security, Colonel Li, will see that you have everything you want." He and Mr. Plantagenet stood up just as a tall and very military Chinese strode into the room. "Here's Colonel Li now."

The Colonel was middleaged, but there was nothing soft about him.

"Gott in Himmel!" exclaimed Papa Schimmelhorn, as they shook hands. "Vot iss? Anoder Chenghiz Khan?"

"I do my best," Colonel Li answered modestly. Then, to Papa Schimmelhorn's surprise, he grinned. "My friend Anton tells me you're a man after my own heart. I too am fond of cats."

"That's right," declared Little Anton. "He knows every pretty little pussycat in Hongkong, and believe me, Papa, you'll be safe as long as he's around, no matter where, no matter what."

For the next two weeks, Papa Schimmelhorn enjoyed himself tremendously. In the late mornings and early afternoons, usually with the two pretty little Balinese on his lap, he endured lectures by a Swedish physicist, a Brazilian physicist, an impatient Nobel Prize winner from an unidentified Balkan country, two Taoist philosopher-historians, a Tibetan lama, a Hindu mystic in whose title the honorific sri was repeated one hundred and eight times, an eminent British archaeologist especially interested in dragons, and a rather puzzled science fiction writer imported from Southern California expressly for the purpose. As almost all the lecturers spoke either English, French, or German, only a few sessions had to be translated for his benefit. Occasionally, he would request works of reference which seemed irrelevant to everybody else, the Book of Mormon, the Eleventh Edition of the Britannica, the collected works of Alfred North Whitehead, of Herr Doktor Jung, and of Mary Baker Eddy, the Bluejacket's Manual, translations of the Mahayana and Hinayana Buddhist scriptures, and any number of others — and these he would scan rapidly. Occasionally, too, Mr. Peng and Mr. Plantagenet would drop in on him, enquire as to his progress, and go away quite satisfied when he replied that eferything vas fine; he could feel it vorking inside der subconscience. He sent a picture postcard to Mama Schimmelhorn almost every day, views of Hongkong Harbor and of museums and ecclesiastical edifices, to illustrate the cultural aspects of his visit, which he declared took up what little time remained after his arduous workday developing special cuckoo-clocks with ethnic overtones for Peng-Plantagenet's Southeast Asian trade. But from twilight on, he and Colonel Li and Little Anton devoted themselves to chasing pussycats. He and the Colonel became boon companions, and he was able to relax so completely that he never noticed such minor incidents as the occasional abrupt disappearance of some Slavic or Oriental or Middle Eastern type who apparently had been following them. At some of these, Little Anton simply crossed his eyes, gave them a push — and they were gone. No fuss, no muss. A few others were taken care of by friends of Colonel Li's, who employed less subtle, but no less effective, methods.

Papa Schimmelhorn's yang flourished, and his researches prospered. Among Hongkong's profusion of pretty pussycats, he eventually almost forgot Miss Kittikool and Miss MacTavish, neglecting them shamefully except when, hours after midnight, he came home to renew his energies with a few hours of sleep. Then suddenly he announced that he had solved the problem, and that the applied technology, costing only a few hundred dollars, could be completed in no more than another week.

Mr. Peng and Mr. Plantagenet were, of course, delighted. They announced that the completion of the task would be properly celebrated by a splendid banquet at the Peng mansion. Little Anton and Colonel Li were pleased, partly because commendations and rewards would be coming to them, and partly because the strenuous pace he had been setting was getting wearing. Only Miss Kittikool and Miss MacTavish, their noses badly out of joint at his faithlessness, failed to rejoice.

Five days went by, and every day Papa Schimmelhorn worked hard, with the dismayed assistance of Peng-Plantagenet's engineers and scientists, assembling a very strange contraption. All sorts of seemingly unrelated gadgets went into it: the private parts of an old Singer sewing machine, a curiously interlaced webbing of copper wire and nylon fishing line, a spiral neon tube fabricated to his orders and filled with a semi-liquid, semi-gaseous substance he himself had brewed in the Peng-Plantagenet laboratories. The net result began to look like a Japanese temple gate, or torii, made partly out of metal, partly of irridescent plastics, and partly of ectoplasm; and when Mr. Plantagenet commented on its smallness, for it was four feet wide and scarcely large enough, as he pointed out, to accomodate even a little dragon, Papa Schimmelhorn slapped him jovially on the back and said, "Dickie, Your Machesty, don't worry! Ve hook it up to der anti-graflty machine und vith my yang, then — ho-ho-ho! — chust vatch it grow!"

Five days went by, and every night Papa Schimmelhorn went out on his yang-renewing mission, much to the disgust of Miss MacTavish and Miss Kittikool. Then, on the afternoon of the fifth day, the device was activated on a trial basis, but without being permitted to expand. Papa Schimmelhorn went up to it and peered through. He saw a different China and a different world. The fields were lush, the forests thick and green. Among the pure white clouds that adorned the sky, two handsome scarlet dragons were disporting themselves. And, on a boulder beside a waterfall, an ancient white-bearded gentleman in silken robes sat quietly reading. Obviously, he was a sage.

"Chust look!" cried Papa Schimmelhorn.

Mr. Peng and Mr. Plantagenet crowded in to look. They gasped in amazement and delight.

The sage looked up. He stood. Gravely he smiled upon them. Just as Papa Schimmelhorn flipped the switch turning the device off, he seemed to bow a welcome.

"Papa, you've done it!" Mr. Peng cried out.

"Of course I do it," answered Papa Schimmelhorn. "Tomorrow I haff it open all der vay, und you can drife through vith maybe a horse und carriage."

Thoughtfully, Mr. Peng observed that a horse-drawn carriage might be the very thing, just in case that other China had avoided mechanization, and Mr. Plantagenet remembered an elegant carriage and pair owned by a wealthy Dutch gentleman of his acquaintance, which he was sure he could borrow for a day or two. These arrangements were promptly made, and the balance of the afternoon was devoted to selecting appropriate gifts for whatever authorities might greet them: a Faberge Easter Egg that had belonged to a Czarina, a nice copy of the Gutenberg Bible, carved emeralds from Ceylon, an original Titian, two Manets, a Gainsborough and a Turner, a tea service in Platinum by the court jeweler to the late King Farouk, a one-minute repeater with two stop-second hands by Audemars-Piguet cased in the same metal, and a traditional cuckoo-clock featuring a whole choir of yodelling cuckoos, which Papa Schimmelhorn had thoughtfully brought with him in his carpetbag.

Regretfully, Mr. P6ng explained that his wife and Mrs. Plantagenet had, a day or two before, decided to take off on a shopping spree in London, Rome, Paris, and New York, in their own private jet. He and Mr. Plantagenet promised, however, that their absence would not be allowed to dampen the festivities that evening; and certainly it did not seem to, for everyone at the banquet was in excellent spirits and, as course followed rare Chinese course, many a toast was proposed to their success upon the morrow, to the triumphs that success was sure to bring, and to the genius who had made it possible.

The genius, who felt as though his yang had never been in finer fettle, divided his attention quite impartially between the dinner, the toasts, and the two extremely pretty pussycats who sat cuddled up against him. Colonel Li and Little Anton contributed to the general merriment by pressing innumerable drinks upon the sober scientist and scholars who had served as Papa Schimmelhorn's consultants, until even they became positively uproarious. Even Miss Kittikool and Miss MacTavish, though seated somewhat apart from the center of attention, appeared to have regained their good humor, giggling and whispering to each other vivaciously. The unfortunate absence of Mrs. Peng and Mrs. Plantagenet was soon forgotten, even by their husbands, and a glorious time was had by all.

In New Haven, on the day of Papa Schimmelhorn's disappearance, Mama Schimmelhorn had returned from the church social much later than she usually did. She was quite tiddly, Little Anton's vodka having worked its wonders, and in a mellow frame of mind, almost — but not quite — ready to forgive her husband. Humming Down By Der Old Mill Shtream, she unlocked the front door. "I'm home, Papa!" she called out.

She listened. Her only answer was a hoarse "Mrreowf" from the basement. Maybe Papa has gone to shleep? she thought as she went down the stairs.

She unlocked the workshop door, and Gustav-Adolf, meowing loudly, rubbed against her legs to tell her he was starving. She turned the light on. Papa Schimmelhorn was nowhere to be seen. The Stanley Steamer too was gone. She frowned terribly. Her black dress rustling, she strode to the garage door. It was securely locked.

"Zo!" she cried out. "Again you run avay. To shleep vith naked vomen vhen you should be thinking how maybe you do nodt go to Heafen vhen you die! Dirty ol—"

Then she spied the note Little Anton had left pinned to the wall above the workbench. She pulled it down.

Dear, dear Great-aunt, (she read)

I am so sorry that I missed you after coming all the way from Hongkong, especially as I am taking Papa back with me.

My employers want him to design some very special cuckoo-clocks. They'll pay handsomely and give him a huge bonus, and he'll be gone only a short time. He told me that when he gets back he's going to take you shopping for some new dresses and a new umbrella!

Affectionately,

Your Little Anton

And scrawled below this was the simple message, I luff you, Mama!! signed, Papa xxxxxXXXX!

She read the note twice. "Hmph!" she sniffed. "Zo dot's how der door opens und shtill iss locked. Lidtle Anton! Der new umbrella I do nodt beliefe. But maybe this time iss different. Lidtle Anton iss a goot boy now. Die Chinesers haff taught him all about Confucius und how to be nice to old people. Okay, I vait und see."

Her mind more at ease, she went upstairs again, fed Gustav-Adolf liver, and settled down to drink a cup of tea and phone Mrs. Hundhammer; and during the next couple of weeks, whenever her suspicious were reawakened they were lulled again by the arrival of a cultural postcard from her husband or from Little Anton. It was not until a few days after Papa Schimmelhorn announced his solution of the problem that her tranquility was again shattered.

Her doorbell rang shortly after breakfast, and she opened up eagerly, looking forward to a pleasant theological disputation with her two usual Jehovah's Witnesses. Instead, on the front stoop stood a pair of the most elegant elderly ladies she had ever seen. Each was fairly tall; each was ramrod straight; each — despite her age — was still attractive. One was Chinese; the other, by the way she dressed and held herself, could only have been English. At the curb behind them stood a gleaming Imperial yellow Rolls-Royce with a chauffeur and liveried footman, and Hongkong license plates.

"I beg your pardon," said the Chinese lady, speaking very softly. "Are you Mrs. Schimmelhorn?"

Mama Schimmelhorn took in the situation at a glance. "Ja," she said, "I am Mama. Vot hass he done now?" She stepped back so they could enter. "Come in und haff a seat, und right avay I bring der tea." Her black dress crackling, she bustled back and forth. "Always vhen he gets loose iss trouble vith naked vomen, sometimes vith only vun like Dora Grossapfel, sometimes vith four oder maybe fife. Only this vunce, vith Lidtle Anton who has been taught about Confucius —"

The elderly ladies exchanged glances.

"— this vunce I thought maybe he vill be goot. Veil, ve liff und learn —"

Reciting part of the long list of Papa Schim-melhorn's carnal sins, she served tea and biscuits, settled down with Gustav-Adolf on her lap, and permitted Mrs. Peng and Mrs. Plantagenet to introduce themselves and tell their tale.

Only a day or so before, they informed her, they had been visited by two young women in the employ of their husbands' firm, Miss Kittikool and Miss MacTavish, both of whom felt that — they were dreadfully sorry they had to tell her this — that they had been taken advantage of by Papa Schimmelhorn. So upset had they been that they had revealed the nature of the project for which he had been hired — Mrs. Peng did her best to explain the technicalities of Black Holes and anti-gravity and yang and yin — to engineer a breakthrough into another universe, where there were dragons and the Chinese Empire still flourished.

Mama Schimmelhorn stood up. "Donnerwetter! Die yang und yin I do nodt undershtand, also Black Holes except like maybe in Calcutta. But Papa — dot iss different. Vhen it iss nodt naked vomen, it iss time-trafel, und gnurrs, und sometimes dirty cuckoo-clocks. Such monkey business. Veil, now I put a shtop!"

uWe were hoping you could," Mrs. Plantagenet said fervently. "I assure you that I have no desire to become Queen of England. I couldn't possible cope with that dreadful Labour Party at my age. Besides, Richard keeps talking about crusades against the Saracens, and though I dare say they deserve it, it does seem a bit late in the day for that sort of thing, doesn't it?"

"Primula's quite right," declared Mrs. Peng. "I myself certainly do not want to be Empress of China, surrounded by eunuchs and slave girls and palace intrigues and all that rubbish. Of course, Horace has promised me that he doesn't want the throne, but there aren't any other candidates, and — well, you know how men are."

Mama Schimmelhorn indicated grimly that indeed she did.

"But worst of all," Mrs. Peng continued, "he wants to bring the dragons back again, even though he knows I can't stand snakes and lizards and all those horrible crawly things. You see, in ancient China his family had charge of them, and they became quite devoted to the creatures. Can you imagine having the sky full of dragons, Mrs. Schimmelhorn?"

"Dragons?" Mama Schimmelhorn snorted. "Herr Gott, iss bad enough vith seagulls und die filthy shtarlings! Efery day on der front porch — you vould nodt beliefe!"

"Exactly," said Mrs. Plantagenet, putting her tea-cup down. "We'd better phone and find out what sort of progress they've been making. I'll charge the call to my account."

"Der phone iss in der hall," said Mama Schimmelhorn.

Five minutes later, her guests returned with grave faces. "Your husband has already constructed his device and is about to give it a preliminary testing," Mrs. Peng announced. "According to Miss Kittikool, however, he doesn't plan to make the breakthrough until late tomorrow afternoon. If we hurry, we may still have time. Will you come to Hongkong, Mrs. Schimmelhorn?"

Mama Schimmelhorn's expression would have done credit to a Grand Inquisiton "Ja, I vill come!" she told them. "Ve finish up der tea, und I call Mrs. Hundhammer to come und feed mein Gustav-Adolf, und ve shtart right avay." She picked up her umbrella. "Papa," she proclaimed, hefting it, "this time vhen I catch you I make you vish I am chust a dragon inshtead of Mama Schimmelhorn!"

Fifteen minutes later, black hat firmly on her head, hands folded tightly over the umbrella's handle, she rode between her new-found friends in the back seat of the Imperial yellow Rolls, headed for the airport. She was in no way impressed by the luxury surrounding her. Her mind was fixed on one objective, and she smiled grimly as she contemplated it.

For security reasons Papa Schimmelhorn had installed his interdimensional gate inside a huge godown owned by Peng-Plantagenet; and there, early next morning, he arrived with Little Anton and the two pretty Balinese to find Colonel Li already on duty at the doors and his employers awaiting him in the Dutch taipan's borrowed equipage beside the Stanley Steamer.

Once, as a youth in Switzerland, Papa Schimmelhorn had spent a pleasant summer driving a horse-drawn char-a-banc full of twittering female tourists from one romantic Alpine spot to another, and as the taipan's coachman had prudently been escorted home, he at once offered to take the reins. As soon as he had made sure that steam was up, he kissed the Balinese goodbye, showed Colonel Li the lever that dilated the gate, and he and Little Anton climbed to the box.

The gate expanded. The other China appeared there before them. The sleek, black powerful horses pawed the ground and snorted. Papa Schimmelhorn shook out the reins and clucked them forward. "Zo!" he cried out. "Dragons, here ve come!"

They moved through the gate at a brisk trot, but now the landscape no longer showed the rock, the sage, the waterfall. A wide, smooth road took shape before them; it looked like porcelain, but on it the horses' hooves made virtually no sound. It did not, like most roads, simply wait for them, but changed form and direction much faster than it should, and the surrounding landscape altered with it. They were passed by crags and pines, by bamboo groves and orchards full of flowering trees — and suddenly they noticed that they were not alone. Behind them and to either side, vehicles escorted them, vehicles that called to mind at once the majesty of a Bugatti Royale and the glowing purity of fine Sung Dynasty celadons. They had no wheels, and floated silently a foot or so above the ground — and overhead, now, half a dozen discoid aircraft hovered just as silently. Bells sang their deep brazen song into the air —

"They appear to have achieved a considerable technology! ' said Mr. Plantagenet apprehensively.

"I never expected anything like this!" whispered Mr. Peng. "Dear me, I hope they're friendly!"

But Papa Schimmelhorn just took off his Tyrolean hat and smiled and waved at all of them.

Then suddenly the road took an abrupt turn and ended at a meadow between arcs of glorious flowers; and at its end a palace stood — a palace of unreflecting glass and porcelain, faceted in the most abstract and complex simplicities. An enormous yellow dragon was stretched out comfortably in front of it; and around him, and to either side, the meadow was thronged with dignitaries — gray-bearded sages, high mandarins in their embroidered robes, stately men and women who (Mr. Peng observed sotto voce) could only have been tributary kings and nobles. Between them, near the dragon's head, stood an empty throne carved of a single block of jade, carved intricately in ancient and more ornate times.

The horses spied the dragon. Eyes rolling, ears laid back, they balked; they plunged and reared; they paid no heed when their coachman tried to quiet them. Then suddenly the dragon looked at them out of his great golden eyes, and they stood still, tense and sweating, totally motionless. Several functionaries came forward, to take their bridles, to help Mr. Peng and Mr. Plantagenet alight, to offer Papa Schimmelhorn a polite hand down, which was cheerfully ignored. Behind them, other officials stood, looking by no means as cordial and holding short metallic rods with control buttons on them.

"They've got lasers, Papa!" whispered Little Anton.

"Ja wohl!" answered Papa Schimmelhorn. "Chust like in Shtar Vars. But do nodt vorry. Somehow I vork it out."

The functionaries parted as obligingly as the Red Sea had for Moses, and through them strode a very tall Chinese, magnificently robed, who stood eye to eye with Papa Schimmelhorn. He addressed himself to Mr. Peng, who simply couldn't take his eyes off the dragon.

"I, sir," he declared, in very strangely accented Mandarin, "am Prince Wen, the Prime Minister. I marvel at your insolence in coming here. Using this person's extraordinary talents and endowments you have crossed forbidden frontiers. We have been observing you for centuries —" He gestured at the discoid aircraft. "— and we have even retained an understanding of your barbaric tongue. The dragons were indeed wise to have abandoned you. In your universe, yang and yin are perilously out of balance. Now you endanger ours. Had I not been ordered otherwise, I would at once have disposed of you and your illicit gate. Have you no idea of the dangers involved in tampering with Black Holes?" He shuddered. "But the Daughter of Heaven is too merciful. She has decreed that she must judge you personally."

He bowed three times toward the palace. Bells rang,. Trumpets sounded.

"D-daughter of Heaven?" quavered Mr. Peng.

"Of course," answered the Prime Minister. "In our universe yang and yin are in perfect balance. This is Thursday — therefore you will appear before the Empress. Had it been yesterday or tomorrow, the Son of Heaven would have examined you. Only on Sundays do they rule China and the world together."

"N-naturally," remarked Mr. Peng.

The Prime Minister smiled cruelly. "I promise you that, once she sees how you have trespassed here, flaunting your unbalanced yang in our very faces, she will be quite as merciless as I."

Again  the  trumpets  sounded.  A crowd  of courtiers and of ladies-in-waiting emerged from the palace's jade doors, moving in a pavane of abstract, highly ordered patterns. In their midst, robed in richly ornamented but curiously diaphanous brocades and wearing a spreading headdress of gold filigree adorned with pearls and jade, strode a Personage. Now in her late middle years, she had been and still was beautiful, but her eyes were cold and clear and calculating, and on her face was an expression of iron determination.

Papa Schimmelhorn, unable of course to understand the conversation, had been amusing himself by contemplating the ladies-in-waiting as they came out, rather lasciviously because some of them were very pretty pussycats indeed. Now, looking on the Empress, he gulped. That expression was only too familiar. He had first seen it on the face of Mama Schimmelhorn when he was courting her, and blinded by her girlhood pulchritude had failed to grasp its meaning. Mama's eyes were gray; the Empress' were black. Mama was a Swiss, originally a blonde; the Empress, quite as tall as she, Chinese. But that was unimportant. Papa Schimmelhorn knew instinctively that they had much in common, and suddenly a panic premonition told him that he should run away. But there was, obviously, nowhere to run to.

Cymbals clashed. Wind instruments cried out like unseen sea birds. The Empress advanced through the pavane and mounted to her throne. Just once, she clapped her hands. There was instant silence. Then she addressed Prince Wen in a strange, singing, fluting language; and he replied at length in the same tongue, interspersing his comments with strong crystalline notes of emphasis whenever he gestured toward their visitors.

Finally he turned. "I have recommended your instant dissolution," he declared. "Painlessly, of course."

"That is unfair!" Mr. Peng cried out. "At least you ought to let us present our gifts and our petitions!"

"It is unsporting!" put in Mr. Plantagenet.

The Empress silenced them. She spoke again in the alien tongue.

"I have been ordered to consult the great Chu-t'sai," Prince Wen announced, pointing at the dragon. "The Daughter of Heaven wishes him to decide your fate."

He and the Empress spoke again, addressing their remarks to Chu-t'sai himself. The dragon listened. With enormous dignity, he stood. He stretched his great neck over the courtier's heads until his twenty-foot-long head was directly in front of Papa Schimmelhorn. For a long minute, while Little Anton trembled in his boots and even the Prime Minister held his breath, they regarded one another. Then Papa Schimmelhorn, with a chuckle, reached up and rubbed Chu-t'sai's mighty chin, and winked — and, never changing his expression, Chu-t'sai winked back.

"P-p-papa," stuttered Little Anton as the vast head drew back again. "Did you see what he did?"

"Naturlich," replied Papa Schimmelhorn. "Ve undershtand each oder. He iss like Gustav-Adolf. I think maybe he iss a Dirty Old Man dragon."

Suddenly, then, Chu-t'sai himself spoke in the singing, fluting language, its words and notes pitched several octaves lower. He spoke only for a moment, but the Empress nodded.

"The great Chu-t'sai," translated Prince Wen with ill grace, "says that we must wait. It is fortunate for you that we, so much more advanced, learned to converse with dragons a thousand years ago. I shall find out how long the waiting is to be —"

But before he could put the question, Little Anton nudged Papa Schimmelhorn. "Listen!"he whispered. "Do you hear what I hear?"

Papa Schimmelhorn listened. So did Mr. Peng and Mr. Plantagenet. Unmistakeably, on the road behind them, a powerful car was racing at full speed — and now everyone was staring past them in its direction.

Tires screamed on curves. The engine roared.

"Richard," said Mr. Peng apprehensively. "That—that sounds to me like Mrs. Plantagenet's Ferrari."

"It does to me too!" moaned Mr. Plantagenet.

"Did you tell Colonel Li that they were on no account to be admitted?"

"Horace, I didn't. After all, they were in Europe! Why didn't you?"

"I—I never even thought of it," admitted Mr. Peng.

There was a final screech of brakes. The throng parted. The bright red Ferrari slid to a harsh stop beside them. In it were three old ladies, all looking extremely angry. The door flew open, and the first out was Mama Schimmelhorn. She ignored everything and everybody. At her expression, even the great Chu-t'sai snorted dolefully. Her umbrella at the ready, she advanced against her husband.

"Hah!" she roared. "Again you get avay, to chase bad girls und play vith dragons und Black Holes und shpoil Little Anton so he forgets about Confucius!" She seized Papa Schimmelhorn firmly by the ear, and started applying the sharp point of her umbrella to his brisket by way of punctuation.

"Mama! Mama! Bitte schon, nodt in public, in front of eferybody! Only look — on der throne iss die Empress of China!"

"To her you should apologize!" Mama Schimmelhorn continued unrelentingly. "Coming to shteal her dragons und her dancing girls! Ach, do nodt argue — chust vait till ve get home —"

Meanwhile Mrs. Peng and Mrs. Plantagenet had descended on their own husbands rather more genteely, but with equal resolution; and the Empress, gazing at the scene, turned to Prince Wen and said, in the singing tongue, "The great Chu-t'sai was right. Though they are of course still barbarians, their yang and yin may not be as hopelessly out of balance as you thought." She pointed at Mama Schimmelhorn. "At least, her yin certainly seems to be as effective as his yang. We'll keep them for a time at least, and find out their reason for coming here. Of course, we will make sure that their gate is closed and never built again. But who knows? Perhaps we may be able to help them become truly civilized."

So for three days Mr. and Mrs. Peng, Mr. and Mrs. Plantagenet, Papa and Mama Schimmelhorn, and Little Anton were entertained imperially, with only the slight condescension inevitable in dealing with barbarians. Banquet followed banquet, feast followed feast, one magnificent spectacle followed closely on another: dances, dramas, and rituals almost unbelievable in their splendor dazzled the visitors, but most impressive of all was a ballet performed for them by the great Chu-t'sai and his wives high in the air during a thunderstorm. (Rather patronizingly — and to the annoyance of Mr. Peng, who of course knew it already — Prince Wen pointed out that dragons, by virtue of their perfect yang and yin, had natural anti-gravity, and that that was why Chinese dragons were always depicted without wings.)

Mr. Peng and Mr. Plantagenet were permitted to present their gifts, which were very graciously received, much being made of the Faberge Easter Egg and especially of Papa Schimmelhorn's cuckoo-clock which the Emperor himself averred would thenceforth hang in the Imperial bedchamber. They were also allowed to introduce themselves formally to the entire court, after which — partly because of the family credentials Mr. Peng and Mr. Plantagenet presented and partly because of the marked favor shown Papa Schimmelhorn by the great Chu-t'sai — their status improved noticeably, even Prince Wen mellowing a bit.

Mr. Peng and Mr. Plantagenet were awed and delighted by all they saw. Mrs. Peng, Mrs. Plantagenet, and Mama Schimmelhorn got along famously with the Empress via two or three interpreters, though Mrs. Peng found it difficult to concentrate when she looked up and saw dragons watching her through the window. Little Anton, having been assigned a pair of pretty pussycats so that his yang would be in better balance, had a ball. Only Papa Schimmelhorn failed to enjoy himself; constantly surrounded by young women of surpassing beauty, he was never permitted out of range of the umbrella, and once or twice when he tried to sneak away, he was stopped effectively by enormous female attendants.

Not until the last day were Mr. P£ng and Mr. Plantagenet given permission to submit their petition to the Throne, and they did so with the utmost politnesss and strictly according to protocol as defined by Prince Wen.

The audience was, of course, conducted on the meadow, so that Chu-t'sai could comfortably participate. He and the Imperial couple listened. Then they took counsel, speaking in hushed voices.

Finally, the Empress proclaimed their decision. She and the Emperor and the great Chu-t'sai all recognized the singular virtue of Mr. Peng and Mr. Plantagenet, particularly in a world so gone to seed. They realized that Mr. Peng was fully qualified to function as Hereditary Keeper of the Imperial Dragon Hatchery, if his world had only had one, and that Mr. Plantagenet would have made a marvellous King of England. She spoke of how impressed they were by Papa Schimmelhorn's genius and his tremendous yang, unparalleled since the days of the Yellow Emperor. However —

She paused and the great Chu-t'sai uttered a deep and mournful sound.

"However," she went on, "because the balance of yang and yin in your own world is so grievously impaired, and because it obviously will be very difficult to make the place habitable again, the great Chu-t'sai has regretfully denied permission to any of his relatives to return there with you."

Mr. Peng's face fell. Mr. Plantagenet looked stricken.

"And as for your Black Hole and its illicit gate," she said, "much as we dislike dismantling so great and rare an accomplishment, for our own protection we must do so the instant you return —"

Mr. Peng and Mr. Plantagenet started to protest, but she held up her hand.

"— and, as a condition of our letting you return, we must have your solemn promise that you, at least, will never try to reconstruct it. We are going to give you many gifts to take back with you, but after you have promised you shall receive, from the great Chu-t'sai, the most precious gift of all, which shall be your responsibility and the sacred responsibility of your sons and daughters. Do you promise solemnly?"

Mr. P£ng looked at Mr. Plantagenet. Mr. Plantagenet looked at Mr. Peng. "We promise, Daughter of Heaven," Mr. Peng said sadly.

The Empress smiled. "Very well." She gestured, and four servitors came up carrying an enormous covered hamper, which they set down before Mr. Peng.

"That is the great Chu-t'sai's gift to you," the Empress said. "It is lined with silk and with the softest down. It holds a clutch of eight dragon eggs, together with the latest scientific instructions on their proper care. A great honor has been paid you."

Mr. Peng bowed profoundly, and thanked the Empress, the Emperor, and the great Chu-t'sai for their trust in him and their munificence.

Then the Empress clapped her hands, and there was music. The audience was at an end, and everyone turned to a late luncheon served there on the meadow, after which the rest of the Imperial presents were brought out, boxes in ebony and lacquer, wrapped in silks of an unimaginable richness, and loaded into the carriage and into the Ferrari.

"We hate to see you go," the Empress said, "but I assure you it's for the best."

The most cordial farewells echoed from every side, and Papa Schimmelhorn embraced the great Chu-t'sai's right nostril. "Herr Drache," he declared, "I vish I shpeak your langvidge."

The great Chu-t'sai whiffled at him softly.

"Ja!" said Papa Schimmelhorn. "I bet ve could tell each oder plenty of shtories —" He saw Mama's eye transfixing him, and patted the huge nostril once again with a sigh. "Auf wiedersehn!" he called back over his shoulder.

The carriage started down the road; the Ferrari followed; the escort fell in to either side and overhead. The road and landscape unrolled before them, faster, faster —

Then, as abruptly as they had left it, they were back inside the godown, with only a very tired and worried Colonel Li waiting to welcome them. As the Ferrari's rear bumper cleared the gate, behind them they heard a soft implosion, and for an instant the air seemed to scintillate and crackle. They turned — and the gate was gone. Only the Stanley Steamer stood there, a thread of smoke and the smell of burning insulation issuing from its hood.

There was a long, long silence, which Mr. Plantagenet finally broke with a harrumph.

Mr. Peng turned to him dolefully.

"Cheer up, old lad," said Mr. Plantagenet. "We do have the dragon's eggs, you know. When they hatch out we'll have proper dragons!"

"Richard," answered Mr. Peng, "do you know how long dragon's eggs take to hatch? One thousand years — and even though our Chinese thousand is often an indeterminate number, it's still going to be a dismally long time."

The Pengs and the Plantagenets very kindly invited the Schimmelhorns to spend a few more days in Hongkong as their guests, but Mama Schimmelhorn refused, saying she was ashamed to be seen with Papa in polite society. She insisted they drive directly to the airport; and this they did, delaying only long enough for Little Anton to retrieve Papa Schimmelhorn's carpetbag and stow it in the Stanley's trunk, for Mama to accept a substantial check (made out in her name) from Mrs. Plantagenet, and for their presents from the Empress to be put aboard.

During the drive, not a word was said, even Little Anton remained silent, and the only sound was the occasional sharp tapping of the umbrella's point against the back of the driver's seat. The Imperial yellow jet was awaiting them with its ramp down, but this time Papa Schimmelhorn knew he could not fly it in. His drive up the ramp was positively funereal.

Despite the courteous and considerate crew, the splendid service and superb cuisine, their return was by no means a fun flight — and the fact that Colonel Li, in a mistaken effort to do his friend a final favor, had assigned the two pretty Balinese as hostesses did nothing to improve the atmosphere or alleviate Papa Schimmelhorn's despondency. All the way, Mama Schim-melnorn sat grimly in her seat, never breaking silence except to elaborate on the misdeeds of Dirty Old Men, and how promising youths like Little Anton would do well to pay them no attention and think rather of Confucius.

They landed at New Haven. Mama Schimmmelhorn tipped each of the crew fifty cents. The ramp extruded. They climbed into the car.

A tear in his eye, Papa Schimmelhorn cast one last lingering look at the pair of Balinese, and mutely shook Little Anton by the hand. Luckily, he had presence of mind enough quickly to palm and pocket the small piece of paper his grand-nephew passed to him.

"Ve drife shtraight home," ordered Mama Schimmelhorn, and he obeyed,

"Ve put der car in der garage," she told him, unlocking the door, waiting until he had driven in, then locking it again and pocketing the key.

"Und now ve go upshtairs und open vup die presents from die Empress."

Papa Schimmelhorn picked them up and followed her. There were two long boxes in cases of figured silk, fastened with silken cords. There was a large square box similarly wrapped. Mama Schimmelhorn opened the long ones first. Lacquered, each contained a scroll on silk, with carved ivory ends. She unrolled the first. It was a classical Chinese ancestral portrait of Papa Schimmelhorn seated in a great teak chair and garbed in the handsome robes of a jade-button mandarin and Assistant (Honorary) Keeper of the Imperial Dragon Hatchery.

"Achf" she exclaimed. "Dot iss how you should look — nodt alvays leering und vinking und thinking about naked vomen."

She unrolled the second. A counterpart of the first, it showed her in the role of the high mandarin's wife, appropriately attired, except that her black hat was set firmly on her head and that her right hand, relentlessly, held her umbrella. On her lap, the painter had depicted Gustav-Adolf, whom Mrs. Peng and Mrs. Plantagenet had described carefully to the Empress.

"It iss beaudtiful!" murmured Mama Schimmelhorn. "Ve hang vun each side of der fireplace."

Then she opened the third package, and out of a box of ebony took a large bronze ting, an ancient sacrificial vessel of great rarity and value.

"Vot iss?" grumbled Papa Schimmelhorn. "To cook die beans?"

"Shtupid!" she snapped. "It iss to plant maybe petunias. Now go downstairs und get your bag, und bring up poor Gustav-Adolf."

Papa Schimmelhorn departed gladly, and as soon as he determined that he and Gustav-Adolf were indeed alone, he read the message Little Anton had passed to him. It said,

Dear Papa,

There's another present, just for you. It's from the Emperor and your dragon chum. I sneaked it out in my own little universe so that Prince Wen wouldn't catch on.

It's out of one of those air-cars of theirs, and I've translated what it says on the outside.

Have fun, old boy!

Love,

Anton

Papa Schimmelhorn hurried to the trunk. Behind his carpetbag, there was a plain cardboard carton with Chinese characters, and under these was the translation:

Imperial Air-Car Factory (it read)

Anti-Gravity Unit

To Be Installed In Steam-Propelled Vehicles Only

(1.3 Dragonpower)

Warranted Black-Hole-Free

Quickly he put it back again and closed the trunk. He hoisted the carpetbag to one huge shoulder and Gustav-Adolf, who had been sniffing at the Stanley Steamer, to the other. As he went up to rejoin Mama Schimmelhorn, he did his very best to look down-cast and shame-stricken. But he didn't make a very good job of it.

He was thinking of fluffy white clouds at two thousand feet, of warm summer breezes, and of Dora Grossapfel's stretchpants.

PAPA SCHIMMELHORN AND THE S.O.D.O.M. SERUM

It was Mama Schimmelhorn's own fault that, at the ripe old age of eighty-plus, in the very prime of his manhood and virility, Papa Schimmelhorn invented his longevity serum, designed to extend the human life span — or at least the Papa Schimmelhorn life span — by five hundred years. Had she not surprised him in flagrante with the lush, forty-year-old Widow Siracusa, and had she — when her suspicions were confirmed — refrained from inviting Pastor Hundhammer to witness the intensely painful confrontation, the Pastor would never have delivered his vitriolic diatribe on the imprudence of old men who wasted their declining years in lust and lechery, Papa Schimmelhorn would not have taken it so much to heart, and Bambi Siracusa would have had no reason to call in the Mafia Family to which her late husband, Jimmy "Fickle Finger" Siracusa, had belonged — though that, of course, was only after she and Mama Schimmelhorn had formed their infamous alliance.

As soon as possible, after listening to his wife recite the endless catalogue of his infidelities, Papa Schimmelhorn took refuge in his basement workshop. It was there, in his leisure hours, when he was neither working at his job as foreman at Heinrich Luedesing's cuckoo-clock factory nor pursuing his more serious hobby, that his soul found solace and his genius its full fruition. On this occasion, he remained uncomforted. Tenderly touching his bruised left ear, by which Mama Schimmelhorn had led him home, and ruefully feeling his injured ribs, which had felt the impact of her black umbrella's pointed ferrule, he sat down on his workbench. There, before him, was his 1922 Stanley Steamer touring car, painted British Racing Green, in which he had once installed an anti-gravity device of his own invention. There was his treasury of old bicycle frames, eviscerated typewriters, snaggle-toothed gears, and tangled springs. Beside him were his drills and chisels, vises, wood-shavings, and unlikely power tools seemingly derived from dead vacuum cleaners. And next to them was his old friend Gustav-Adolf, lashing his long, striped tail, purring loudly, and obviously enjoying the plump mouse he was devouring.

"Ach, Gustav-Adolf, you do not understand!" Flexing his mighty biceps, Papa Schimmelhorn groaned dismally. "Look at me! I am as good as new — chust ask my lidtle Bambi if you don't beliefe! But old Hundhammer iss right. Maybe only ten years, maybe fifteen — then no more chasing pretty lidtle pussycats. It iss all ofer — such a vaste!"

At the thought of all the ladies, young and middle-aged and even well-preserved elderly, now destined to be irremediably deprived, a tear appeared at the corner of his bright blue eye; and Gustav-Adolf, who understood him perfectly, growled in sympathy, pushed the remains of the mouse toward him with a paw, and said, "Go on an' eat it, chum — you'll feel lots better!" in Cat. He waited for a moment and, when his offer was ignored, philosophically polished off the mouse himself.

"But it iss not chust pussycats," sighed Papa Schimmelhorn. "It iss der vorld. Remember, Gustav-Adolf, I am a chenius. For a vhile in Geneva, Herr Doktor Jung paid me to sit und listen, und read die old books und a lot of foolish new vuns, und vhen I asked him vhy he vould chust chuckle und say, 'Don't vorry, Papa. Someday from der subconscience it pops out.' Und he vas right. Und also —" He pointed at a newly contrived and splendid cuckoo-clock hanging on the wall. "— also I am an artist. Look! I make it for my lidtle Bambi — der vorld's only X-rated cuckoo-clock, adjusted mit tvelve positions, und vith a qvartet of cuckoos instead of only vun."

Sadly he turned the hands to twelve o'clock. The quartet of cuckoos — two tenors, a baritone, a bass — obligingly came out and sang the hour.

Gustav-Adolf tensed; then, remembering previous experiences with the Schimmelhorn variety of avifauna, relaxed disgustedly.

The cuckoos went back in. A larger door beneath them opened wide; a tiny Louis XVI bedstead emerged luxuriously; on it, in miniature, lay Mrs. Siracusa and an anonymous young man. Papa Schimmelhorn watched them sentimentally for quite a while. "I do not put myself," he explained to Gustav-Adolf. "It iss modesty, because I am a chenius." He sighed. "Und now Mama has made my lidtle-Bambi angry, und Pastor Hundhammer has lowered der boom." He shook his head self-pityingly. "A trachedy — imachine! Eferything cut off chust vhen I feel good for maybe fife hundred more years —"

He stopped. That subconscious which had so fascinated Jung — and which probably would have proved even more intriguing to Herr Doktor Freud — had slipped swiftly and silently into top gear. His eyes narrowed calculatingly. "Und vhy not?" he asked Gustav-Adolf. "Fife hundred years perhaps iss no more difficult than anti-grafity or gnurrs!" He paused to contemplate the possibilities. The number of pretty pussycats who could be chased successfully in half a thousand years seemed pretty much unlimited. He beamed. "Maybe it vorks!" he exclaimed delightedly. "Anyhow ve try. Und if I fix it, Gustav-Adolf, also I giff you some. Maybe it lasts you vun hundred years only, because you are a cat, but dot's better than chust two or three, nicht wahr?"

"Mrrowf" declared Gustav-Adolf emphatically.

Papa Schimmelhorn winked at him. He pointed warningly at the floor above. "Only remember!" he whispered. "To Mama, not a vord!"

For several weeks, he was a model husband. When he was not toiling at the cuckoo-clock factory, most of his spare time was spent either in his workshop or at the public library poring laboriously over treatises on genetics, cytology, cytogenetics, biochemistry, and any number of other subjects he did not understand — but which his subconscious absorbed very effectively indeed. He dipped into learned works on the mating habits of the bower bird, the decoction of ethers and esters and imitation Irish whiskey, the electronic marvels of the Space Age, proctology made easy, hypnotism, herpetology, and the magical and therapeutic properties of the ancient Chinese pharmacopoeia. Occasionally, he made mysterious small purchases, and after a while Mama Schimmelhorn began to notice strange vapors coming from the basement, some pleasant and actually enticing, others noxious and repellent, but his behavior lulled her suspicions temporarily. Every Sunday, for the first time in their sixty-three years of married life, he now accompanied her to church, and much to the astonishment of all it was his mighty voice that took the lead in every hymn. Indeed, on his first visit, when Pastor Hundhammer abandoned his prepared sermon to deliver an extemporaneous one on "Sodom" — which in Biblical times had been a wicked city, but now could be taken to mean "Shame On Dirty Old Men" — the AMEN! to which he gave utterance was positively heart-rending.

Mama Schimmelhorn's female friends rejoiced, with Pastor Hundhammer, in his reformation. The male members of the congregation, including his employer, old Heinrich Luedesing, began to whisper gloatingly that Papa was finally losing the powers they envied him. And in the meantime the R&D program in the basement proceeded toward its triumphant denouement.

Naturally, Papa Schimmelhorn was excited — but he was not a man to leave anything to chance. "Ve giff it first to mices," he told Gustav-Adolf, eyeing a murky, evil-odored fluid in a pickle-jar. "Maybe you vork hard und catch? At first ten or tvelve vould be enough." He glanced into his friend's green, unwinking eyes, sighed, and went out to buy white mice from a pet shop. We need not detail either the ingredients that went into his final product or the seemingly disconnected and decidedly unsanitary processes by which it was arrived at, but there had been contributions from his own anatomy, one or two minor ones (reluctantly) from Gustav-Adolf's, and a variety of others from unlikely areas of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. Finally, the pickle-jars had been subjected to subtle treatments under an antique X-ray machine, the veteran of several dentists' offices, before which a strangely twisted crystal did a clockwork dance over what looked like a drunken diffraction grating. Three fluids had resulted: the one already mentioned, another like a liquid Gorgonzola with things wiggling in it, and a bright red preparation which threw off fumes, sizzled slightly, and smelled of clams.

The first white mice arrived, were left with no protection but a shoebox, and perished promptly when Papa Schimmelhorn left the room for a few minutes. The second batch, given the yellow fluid while Gustav-Adolf was digesting their predecessors, rolled up their beady eyes and died immediately. The third absorbed the liquid Gorgonzola, flickered eerily for about thirty seconds, and disappeared.

"Ach!" murmured Papa Schimmelhorn. "I haff made der mistake vith der wrong dimension. Okay, ve try again!"

The fourth batch, approximately of platoon strength, drank up the clammy preparation greedily. Then, one by one, they weakened rapidly. They shrivelled. Their fur thinned and dulled. Their eyes grew dim. They too gave up and died.

There was just one exception — a rather bristly mouse a bit larger than the rest. He too had seemed to shrivel. His fur had changed its texture and its hue. But his eyes had kept their brilliance, and now he actually seemed stronger than before.

Papa Schimmelhorn picked him up with a glad shout. He flung the door open to admit a much irritated Gustav-Adolf, exiled since the debacle of the first mice.

"Look, Gustav-Adolf!" he cried out. "Maybe it vorks! Herr Maus iss alife und veil!" He put the mouse down under his cat's nose — and the mouse squeaked once, stood up, and bit it savagely.

Never, not even in his rough-and-tumble kittenhood, had Gustav-Adolf been bitten by a mouse. Shocked to the core, he yowled, leaped backward, and crouched, growling suspiciously. The mouse jumped from the workbench and escaped through the door.

"It vorks!" shouted Papa Schimmelhorn. "For mices, it giffs maybe ten years, for cats vun hundred, for me fife hundred — imachine! Fife hundred years of chasing pretty pussycats!" He danced a jig. "Blondes, Gustav-Adolf! Brunettes und redheads und shlender vuns und plump vuns und maybe lidtle girls from China und Chapan!"

He looked down. Gustav-Adolf, forgetful of the mouse, was just lapping up the remaining liquid in the saucer.

"Mein Gott!" Papa Schimmelhorn reached out to stop him. "Not yet, Gustav-Adolf! First ve make  experiments!   It  iss too dancherous —"

He was too late. Gustav-Adolf gave the plate a final swipe, and sat up to lick his chops. Papa Schimmelhorn regarded him with trepidation — and nothing happened. He did not shrivel. His fur and eyes retained their accustomed brilliance. Perhaps his chops seemed suddenly a little grayer, but even that was not quite certain.

The truth dawned suddenly on Papa Schimmelhorn. "Okay!" he roared, lifting the pickle-jar like a Viking drinking horn. "It vorked on Herr Maus because he vas a Dirty Old Man maus! It vorks for Gustav-Adolf because he iss a Dirty Old Man tomcat! Ach, because of Hundhammer, ve must call it der S.O.D.O.M. Serum!" The bright red liquid fumed and bubbled. "So down der hatch! Look — chust like Herr Doktor Chekyll und Mr. Hyde!" He took a mighty gulp.

It went down very smoothly, hit bottom, vibrated, bounced, and diffused instantly throughout his system. He felt it in every nerve and muscle, in every organ, in each blood vessel. Abruptly, he felt revitalized. He had not changed; it was just that suddenly his warranty had been renewed — and unconditionally.

He stretched as he had not stretched since he was seventeen. Gustav-Adolf followed suit. They stared at each other conspiratorially.

"Tonight ve go to see my lidtle Bambi," said Papa Schimmelhorn. "Vhen I giff her X-rated cuckoo-clock, und tell how I am full of vinegar for fife hundred more years, maybe she forgiffs me for not saying I am married und about Mama. But now —" He hoisted Gustav-Adolf to his shoulder. "— ve haff all afternoon, so ve take a valk to visit Cherry Blumenheimer, who iss nice und pink und who has a pretty lidtle Siameser pussycat. Ve both haff fun."

And in the dining room directly overhead, Mama Schimmelhorn removed the microphone of an otherwise unnecessary hearing aid which she had pressed against the floor, straightened in her stiff black dress, brandished her stiff black umbrella, and hissed, "So! Shtill you vant to feel naked vomen vithout die clothes, und for fife hundred years! You chust vait — ve fix!"

For a moment, she simply stood there, breathing fire and looking like a cross between Whistler's Mother and the Day of Judgment. Her doubts had reawakened a few days previously, on the Sabbath, when Papa Schimmelhorn had absentmindedly pinched the invitingly round bottom of Miss Jasmine Jorgensen, Heinrich's secretary. She had begun to wonder, not only about the sincerity of his conversation, but just what he was up to. Now she knew. "Traitor!" she muttered. "So you do not tell dot you are married!" And suddenly she found herself regarding Bambi Siracusa — her bete noire of the weeks just passed — not as a home-wrecker, not as the quintessence of female depravity, but as frail sister equally betrayed.

She waited until she saw Papa Schimmelhorn and Gustav-Adolf turn the corner. Then she phoned Mrs. Siracusa. She was not warmly greeted, and it took some minutes for her to convince Bambi of her good intentions. She declared that she did not know that Papa Schimmelhorn had been posing as a bachelor. She apologized for invading Bambi's boudoir, for doing so in the company of Pastor Hundhammer, and for assaulting her with an umbrella. She expressed her sympathy for an innocent young woman who had so cruelly been deceived.

"You really got yourself a handful, Mrs. S.," said Bambi, stretching her warm hundred and sixty pounds reminiscently inside her pink peignoir. "I'm sure glad you called. It's real tough when an old goat like him, with all sorts of experience, takes advantage you might say of a little girl like me, who was a for-real virgin almost till I got hitched to Siracusa, God rest his nasty soul!"

"Experience?" cried Mama Schimmelhorn. "For sixty-three years, und vunce in der old country vith a female shtring qvartet! Und now he fixes it so he lasts fife hundred years more. It iss an oudraitch!"

Bambi choked over the beer she was sipping, sputtered, and finally said, "H-how's that? Come again?

"He iss a chenius," Mama Schimmelhorn informed her — and then she told her all about how the Schimmelhorn subconscious operated, and about his inventions which even great scientists couldn't understand, but which always worked, and she detailed the successful experiments she had overheard.

"You wouldn't shi—I mean, kid me? Would you, Mrs. S.?"

Mama Schimmelhorn assured her that she would not.

There was a sudden silence. Bambi Siracusa was a high-survival type in an extremely tough society. Where Papa Schimmelhorn saw only five hundred years of good clean fun, and Mama Schimmelhorn the threat of five centuries of sordid sin, she at once smelled money — and a lot of it.

Her mind began to function as swiftly and efficiently as any Schimmelhorn invention. "Why, that dirty, lowdown, horny male chauvinist pig/" she exclaimed. "Mama, you got any notion what the old bastard's up to?"

"He vants to live fife hundred years to play with naked vomen," replied Mama Schimmelhorn accurately enough.

"You're goddam well right! And that's not all. He and the rest of the old goats are going to keep it all themselves! You tell me, like why can't he give some of it to us girls? Why can't we go screwing around for five hundred years? I'll tell you why! Because that's how they've always treated us, that's why!"

"Vomen's Lib!" proclaimed Mama Schimmelhorn. "Dot's vhat ve need!"

"You can say that again, Mama! And I know just the girl can help us out. Her name's Val Canicatti. She heads up the Fa — that is, she's the Woman's Lib boss in these parts. I'll get it set up right away. We'll get together and have a snort. She'll tell us what to do."

"I  vill not  shnort," said Mama  Schimmelhorn, "but I vill maybe drink a cup of tea."

"Okay we'll have ourselves a tea party. You just stay put, honey. She'll send a car for you. You think the old man's going to be around?"

Mama Schimmelhorn replied that the old man had gone out chasing pretty pussycats, and Bambi, indignantly, promised that Women's Lib would snake her safely out of there before he could show up again.

They broke off the conversation with mutual expressions of affection and esteem. Mama Schimmelhorn, taking a drop of Mogen David to quiet her nerves, phoned Pastor Hundhammer and poured out her sorrows to him also, shocking him profoundly and causing him to cry out against Papa Schimmelhorn's profanation of the Biblical three score years and ten. However, he did remark that it would indeed be miraculous if a man could live five hundred years to serve the Lord — and Mama Schimmelhorn, reminded just in time of his masculinity, said nothing to him about the part the Women's Liberation Movement was going to play in the chastizing of her husband.

In the meantime, Bambi very excitedly had phoned Vala Canicatti, of whom — like everybody else — she stood in terror. Born somewhere between Macao and Harbin, of ancestry unknown, Mrs. Canicatti had grown up speaking any number of exotic languages — each with a vaguely foreign accent — and practicing any number of little known and illegal arts. Her finishing school, where World War II had found her, had been one of Shanghai's fanciest and most expensive bordellos. There, after the Liberation, she had been discovered by a quartermaster colonel, who had purchased her, taken her back to Kansas City as a trophy of war, and married her. He had survived for several weeks before perishing in a household accident, and had been followed, in rather swift succession, by a Little Rock dentist, a Phoenix real estate broker, and a Beverly Hills investment consultant, all of whom had obligingly left her everything of which they died possessed. Finally, in New Haven, she had married Luigi "Lucky Looey" Canicatti, of whom she had been genuinely fond, and whose willing helpmate she had been until he too passed on, surprisingly of natural causes. At that point, she had simply taken over, and one or two male chauvinists who had disputed the succession had ended up in concrete coffins under several fathoms of polluted water. She was known as "the Godmother", and her word was law.

Perhaps because she had done nicely in what was ostensibly a man's world, the idea of posing as the local head of Women's Lib delighted her. As those who knew her knew better than to trick her, she never doubted that there was at least an element of truth in Bambi's tale. But where Bambi had smelled only money, she instantly smelled power. Graciously, she promised to send a limousine after Mama Schimmelhorn, and to join them for tea.

First though, she phoned the representative of a discreet but prosperous South American import-export firm, headed by a former executive of the S.S., which traded in illicit pharmaceuticals.  Then she called up an unlisted number and made arrangements for an old acquaintance, now working for a major Iron Curtain country, to get in touch with her. Finally, after issuing the necessary orders to her mafiosi, she rummaged through her wardrobe for clothing which would make her more plausible in her new role, and settled on a pair of striped bellbottomed pants, a turtleneck red-white-and-blue sweater with a peace symbol on it, and a loudly checked sports coat of the late Mr. Canicatti's.

In the meantime, Pastor Hundhammer had not remained idle. As soon as Mama Schimmelhorn hung up, he had called his favorite parishioner and financial mainstay, Heinrich Luedesing, to tell him the exciting news, and Heinrich had immediately pounced on the trans-Atlantic phone to inform his wife's Cousin Albrecht, Managing Director of S.I.V.A., a gigantic chemical combine in Zurich. Miss Jasmine Jorgensen, listening in on her extension, had at once taken a coffee break so that she could tip off a groovy boy friend named Howie, who worked for a dubious detective and industrial security agency, and whom she had managed somehow to confuse with James Bond. And a young man in Cousin Albrecht's office surreptitiously sent a coded cablegram to the Vice-President of a Dutch cartel which was S.I.V.A.'s most formidable rival. By the time Vala Canicatti's limousine arrived to pick up Mama Schimmelhorn, forces of an astonishing rapacity and ruthlessness were zeroing in on Papa Schimmelhorn and his S.O.D.O.M. Serum.

Bambi Siracusa's tea party was a great success. Mama Schimmelhorn had more or less expected the head of Women's Lib to be a truculent, masculine creature with a deep bass voice. Instead, she found a woman who in her youth had certainly been very beautiful, and who even now — except for her wide Finnish cheekbones, her strange garments, and her cigar — looked like the expensively well-preserved widow of a successful broker or neurosurgeon. The Godmother was decidedly feminine. Even her black eyes did not betray her — as quite a number of interested males had discovered to their sorrow. Very demurely, she drank her tea — which she laced heavily with Lemon Hart rum — and listened to Mama Schimmelhorn's tale of woe, commenting sympathetically in a softly musical voice. Her agate-eyed male attendants, who had served as chauffeur and footman aboard the limousine, showed by their deference exactly who was boss; and when she spoke of the cruel oppression so long endured by her sex, she gave no hint that her own interest in the male animal was, aside from its financial aspects, a bedtime one, or that she found Papa Schimmelhom's reputed potency quite as intriguing as his serum's.

It took her only a minute to arrive at her decision. "That serum's not all his, dear," she told her guest. "Don't ever think it is! There's a community property law in this state, and you own half of it. Women's Lib has lawyers who'll handle all that for you. All you need to do is give me what they call a power of attorney so we can act for you."

Mama Schimmelhorn, very much impressed, replied gratefully that that would be very nice indeed.

Mrs. Canicatti beckoned one of her mafiosi. "Get Woozy over here right away," she ordered. "Tell him it's for a power of attorney." Then she poured Mama Schimmelhorn another cup of tea. "And I guess we'd better get your Dirty Old Man out of circulation for awhile," she continued, with a twinkle in her eye. "I've got a sort of — well, a rest home, out in the country. The boys'll take him there and keep him safe, just so he won't have a chance to sell the serum out from under you. We'll tell him how we're acting in your behalf. Then, if he won't give us the formula, we'll get some of our women scientists to analyze it."

"It serfes him right!" Mama Schimmelhorn said grimly. "But maybe you find it easier if die boys shtay home und you send a pretty girl inshtead."

Both the Godmother and Bambi at once saw the wisdom of this argument, and Bambi — perhaps a bit too eagerly — volunteered to serve as decoy.

"Mama said a pretty girl, dear," murmured Mrs. Canicatti. "We'll se*id Diane from the — er — nightclub. She's blonde, with a delicious figure — prime old-goat bait... Pete!" she called over her, shoulder. "You go get her. She can use my car to make the pickup. How soon can you have her here?"

"Maybe twenty minutes, Mrs. C," Pete grunted, "if she's got her clothes on and no customers."

The Godmother snapped her fingers, and he took his leave.

"But how's she going to find him?" Bambi asked.

"He vas on his vay to visit Cherry Blumenheimer," spat Mama Schimmelhorn. "She iss a bad girl who lives on —"

"I know the name," interrupted the Godmother, her eyes narrowing. "She used to peddle — well, never mind." She turned to the remaining mafioso. "Get on the horn, Romeo, and tell her what the score is. Tell her if he shows up to keep him till we call, then boot him out. Don't worry, honey," she said to Mama Schimmelhorn. "He's in the bag."

The doorbell rang, and Bambi admitted Woozy the attorney, a long, cold, hairless being with the personality of a baited rat-trap and a briefcase of imitation lizard-skin. He listened to Mrs. Canicatti's explanation, and quickly prepared a power of attorney in triplicate. Mama Schimmelhorn affixed her signature triumphantly, and Romeo and Bambi also signed as witnesses. Then Woozy slithered out, and the tea party resumed.

Very genteelly, the Godmother poured the tea, and Mama Schimmelhorn graciously accepted so generous a dollop of Lemon Hart in hers that, when Diane was ushered in a few minutes later, she was able to regard her not just dispassionately but with approbation.

"Chust right for der Dirty Old Man," she declared. "You vill haff no trouble."

Diane's briefing was short and to the point. She and her driver were to lurk near Cherry Blumenheimer's residence until they spied their quarry. Then Diane was to flirt with him, tell him how muscular and masculine he was (a move suggested by Mama Schimmelhorn), and invite him to a week-end house party. She was to phone them as soon as the mission was accomplished.

When she was gone, Mrs. Canicatti poured again, and began asking questions about how the Schimmelhorn genius functioned. These, of course, Mama Schimmelhorn could not answer. She repeated what she already had told Bambi — that, great as his inventions were, neither he nor anybody else had ever duplicated one of them.

"In that case," said the Godmother, "we'd better not take any chances, had we? When we drive you home, I'll just pick up the serum he's already made, so our scientists can start in analyzing it. You do know where he keeps it, don't you?"

Mama Schimmelhorn replied that she did indeed — that she had hurried to his workshop as soon as he left the house.

They toasted the cause of Women's Liberation in tea and rum, and in less than half an hour Diane called in. She had had no trouble persuading Papa Schimmelhorn, she informed Mrs. Canicatti breathlessly, and — My God! who was this super-Santa anyway? They'd been in the car together only five minutes maybe, and here she was already black and blue all over — and he'd—he'd brought along his tomcat! — and anyhow they were on their way back to the Mansion, and here he was trying to p-p-pull her back out of the phone booth!

The Godmother hung up, commending her, and told Mama and Bambi what she'd said; and Mama Schimmelhorn, now slightly tiddly, commented that Gustav-Adolf vas a good cat, who caught rats und mices. All the way home, in Bambi's car, she chuckled wickedly at the thought of how she and her allies were going to fix Papa, and without hesitation she delivered the pickle-jar with its remaining contents to the Godmother.

"Bye-bye!" she called after them. "Pretty soon I call you ofer und ve haff tea again."

The Mansion of the Canicatti Family was precisely that — a great, pillared house built in the mid-nineteenth century by an ex-Govenor of Connecticut and inhabited for many years by a Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court, whose whiskered portrait — to the amusement of its present residents — still glared disapprovingly from the far wall of its great dining room. Now its spacious grounds were fenced forbiddingly and closely guarded.

As the car, driven by Romeo, turned into its shaded drive, Bambi looked a little apprehensively at Mrs. Canicatti. "Are — are you going to —?" she began uncertainly. "I mean, Mrs. C, is there any chance of the old guy getting, well, like hurt!"

The Godmother smiled dreamily. "Bambi honey, I'm going up to change into something a lot more comfortable. Let's see — there's that mutation mink housecoat out of Neiman-Marcus, the one that's split up to my waist each side and right up from my bellybutton in the front. And then we'll find out if what everybody's saying about your antique friend is true, and if it is — well, Women's Lib won't do him any harm, I promise you!"

Bambi suppressed a sentimental sigh. The assurance of Papa Schimmelhorn's continued physical well-being did not quite console her for the fate she saw immediately ahead of him.

The door was opened by Georgie "Goofball" Capotino, big and broken-nosed and very carefully tailored, who came as close to being a second-in-command as the Godmother would permit. "Hey, Jeez, Mrs. C.," he grunted, "you sure latched onto a weirdo this time. Diane's got the old cluck upstairs. You won't believe it — they're playin' games. What is the deal, anyhow?"

"Big money," snapped Mrs. Canicatti. "What else's new?"

"Howie phoned," he told her. "Just a quarter hour ago. I don't get it, but he said the old lady called her preacher and talked about some medicine like it makes you live a thousand years, and the preacher he rang up the old guy's boss, and he got right through to some great big outfit back in Switzerland. Howie said to tell you the word's out."

"Merde!" said the Godmother under her breath, adding a Cantonese expletive so imaginatively pornographic that, translated, it would have shocked even her present audience. "I didn't think of that! Well, we'll do the best we can. Bambi, you phone Mama right away and tell her a crew of male chauvinist bastards are after Papa's secret, and she's to make sure they get in touch with me. Give her my personal number. Now get with it!"

Bambi got with it.

"We're really going to have to hurry," continued Mrs. Canicatti. "I'm giving a big house-party, Goofball, and it's going to be bigger than I thought — though it won't last too long. I want you to round up my top boys —" She enumerated five of her most wanted men. "and they can bring their chicks. You can keep enough of the rest around to guard the grounds, but tell 'em nothing and send everybody else away on jobs until it's over. Oh, and tell Chong tomorrow night we'll have an all-out banquet."

Goofball grunted obediently.

"Okay, then. I'm going up to undress. And then I want to meet our senior citizen."

Humming a pretty tune, she took the stairs two at a time, quickly secreted the pickle-jar in her personal wall-safe, bathed, powdered, scented, touched her beautifully groomed hair approvingly, and slipped into the housecoat. It snowed a great deal of her, and she went downstairs again elated. Her plans for a quick financial killing and for adventure of a different sort were practically complete, and they were progressing famously. She waved happily to Bambi —

And abruptly, from behind her, came a piercing feminine squeal, a booming ho! ho! ho! of male laughter, a rush of running feet — and in a flash of flesh-tones and blonde hair, Diane had passed her, closely pursued by Papa Schimmelhorn, beard streaming in the wind, and wearing spectacularly a pair of pink and green striped shorts. He caught up with Diane, who was wearing exactly one pair of shorts less than he, lifted her squealing in his mighty arms, and shouted, "See? I vin!"

Bambi Siracusa saw the Godmother's eyes widen as she beheld his masculine proportions — and at once narrow calculatingly and hungrily. At that instant, "Bambi!" he cried out, spying her. "You haff come also to der party? Look, Diane und me, ve play der hide und seek, und I haff von der prize!" He bounced the prize up and down affectionately. "Now ve haff lots of fun!"

Then, simultaneously, he and the Godmother for the first time really saw each other. He dropped Diane, who squeaked and darted off. His countenance radiated pleased astonishment. He opened his arms wide.

"Lidtle Vala!" he roared joyously. "My lidtle Vala! After so many years!"

And, "You!" hissed Mrs. Canicatti.

For a fraction of a second, her face was a Medusa's mask of such malevolence that Bambi shuddered, but the expression vanished just as suddenly, replaced by a smile whose artificiality Papa Schimmelhorn obviously failed to recognize. He embraced his lidtle Vala. He held her at arm's length. "Ach!" he exclaimed. "Chust imachine! Diane, und Bambi, und now you! It is chust like Old Home Veek!" Then he remembered that his prize had fled away, hugged the Godmother once again, promised that he would return to her as soon as he had time, and rushed off in pursuit.

"My Gawd, Mrs. C.," cried Bambi, "you know each other?"

Immediately, the Medusa mask was back, and this time it stayed out. "Know him?" she hissed again. "Know him? That is the only man who ever got it for nothing from Vala Canicatti — for nothing. Not one thin dime! And for a solid week. And then he left me — me! — for a crumby little beer hall waitress. We were in Switzerland, me and my third husband, the one who left me all the money when he fell off the cliff. And that old son of a bitch yodelled at me." Mrs. Canicatti was now breathing hard under the stress of her emotion; she had abandoned instantly all thought of such legalities as powers of attorney, and Medusa was even more frightening than before. "Bambi, I'll tell you this — his five hundred years are going to be the shortest ones on record! I've got to keep him on exhibit until I pull off this caper. Then back he goes to the ecology!"

Pale and trembling, Bambi muttered something about how she didn't blame her.

The mask dissolved, and at once the Godmother was her cold self again. "He mustn't guess what's going on," she said. "As long as possible, he's got to keep on thinking it's just a house-party where he can chase his pretty pussycats. But I don't think Diane can do the job, not if she lets him chase her naked through the halls. Our party's got to be respectable. Bambi, it's up to you. We 11 send Diane back, and you take over. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"If you s-say so, Mrs. C," answered Bambi, torn between terror and anticipation and trying hard to keep her cool.

"It's lucky the old ape has his mind on just one thing, and you've got lots of it. But you're not just to play around together. I want you to find out about that formula."

"You — you mean so you won't have to have the serum analyzed?"

The Godmother regarded her contemptuously. "So I can make damn sure Mama told the truth. Remember? She said he hadn't any notion how he made it, and nobody could ever figure out how his inventions worked. Wake up, for Christ's sake! You don't think I'd ever let that formula get out, do you? I'm going to live five hundred years, and so are a few guys like Goof-ball, whom I can handle, and maybe so are you, because you let me know about it. I'm going to peddle whatever we don't need to these guests we've got coming here, for cold, hard cash — but they're going to swallow every drop of it before they leave. There's no percentage in letting everybody have it, stupid — not just for quick bucks. This way, after a while the few of us can rule the world! The competition'll get old and die, but we won't."

The first guests arrived just before the cocktail hour, having had to travel only from Washington, D.C. One of them was Mrs. Canicatti's Iron Curtain contact; and she immediately sized up the other as someone far above him in the secret apparatus. His eyes were even stonier than those of her own mafiosi, and he seemed more ominous because he spoke no English and kept growling comments in his own Slavic tongue. They showed up carefully camouflaged, riding inside a poodle beauty parlor panel truck which vanished into the estate's one-time stable before decanting them.

"He is a Colonel-General of the Special Secret Police," whispered his subordinate as the Godmother greeted them,  "but he remains incognito. You will call him by his code name, Quicklime. He is much interested in what you have for sale."

"What an interesting name," said Mrs. Canicatti. "He sounds like a man after my own heart." She offered vodka, which they turned down in favor of her most costly Scotch, and then she made it plain that no business would be transacted until the rest of her intended customers arrived. After that, though their glasses were frequently refilled, the conversation languished until dinnertime, when Papa Schimmelhorn — now fully dressed again — showed up attended by a nervous and much-rumpled Bambi.

Only a man with five hundred good years ahead of him could have displayed so uproarious a joie de vivre in so grim a company. He had told Bambi about his S.O.D.O.M. Serum, giving the tensions of its manufacture as his reason for having forgotten to confess that he was married. He had described the X-rated cuckoo-clock in detail, explaining that he had made it in her honor and as a gift to her; and, deeply touched, she had forgiven him affectionately. Now, in splendid spirits, he described graphically how Gustav-Adolf, confined to quarters and provided with a flea-collar by orders of the Godmother, had disgustedly rejected the cat-box installed for his convenience. He ate with gusto. He drank deeply and enthusiastically. Several times, he walloped Mr. Quicklime on the back, informed him that it vas too bad he vas a cold fish vith no vinegar, and assured him that if he vished to restore his youthful vigor all he had to do vas vatch Papa Schimmelhorn. On each of these occasions, Mr. Quicklime's subordinate turned pale; and finally, when told to translate, could nardly gasp out the reply that Mr. Quicklime had, in his country, heard much of the achievements of the great Academician Schimmelhorn, that he admired the products of the Academician's genius, which were incomprehensible to lesser men, but that now, to his infinite regret, he would have to bid the great Academician a warm goodnight.

As they left the room under the hostile stare of the dead Chief Justice, Papa Schimmelhorn thumped the table and roared with laughter. "Now I am der Academician I vill tell you how I haff become vun! Vunce in Geneva there vas an academy for die young vomen, und —"

Sometime later, after intercepting several poisonous glances from the Godmother, Bambi managed to entice him upstairs again. She watched him dismally as he undressed, and for the first time in her adult life experienced a true crisis of conscience. Never before had she met a lover of such prowess, but that was not the most important point. Never, never had anyone, anywhere, made her so much as a special mousetrap, let alone an X-rated cuckoo-clock. She slipped out of her things, sat down quietly on the bed beside him, and started sniffling.

Papa Schimmelhorn sat up. "But you are crying!" he exclaimed in astonishment. And even Gustav-Adolf, underneath the bed, temporarily stopped his indignant growling.

Bambi sobbed a little louder.

He reached for her. She shrank away — and suddenly the whole story poured out of her. She whispered brokenly how Mama Schimmelhorn had phoned, how she herself had called the Godmother, and about the t-t-tea party, and who Mrs. Canicatti really was, and her plans for the S.O.D.O.M. Serum and its ill-starred inventor.

Except for a burst of laughter at the idea of Vala Canicatti as a Women's Lib leader, Papa Schimmelhorn listened silently. He made no protest at his wife's course of action, saying only, "Poor Mama! She does not undershtand me or my serum, or how I like vunce in a vhile a goot time." He was convinced; he was even impressed; but he was in no way dismayed. After she had pointed out the peril into which loyalty to him had plunged her, describing gruesomely the fate of Mrs. Canicatti's enemies, he reached for her again, dried her tear-moistened cheeks against his beard, and said, "Vhat a shame! Und it could haff been a party chust for fun! Vell, don't vorry, shveetheart, tomorrow I pretend I do not know, und ve vill get avay."

"H-h-how?"

"Ve send Gustav-Adolf to tell Mama, so she can call der F.B.I."

"You mean your — your cat?"

"He iss a shmart cat," replied Papa Schimmelhorn, getting out of bed. "He brings der F.B.I., und ve are safed, und also they shtop Vala from playing vith der serum. It iss dancherous." He found a pencil and a scrap of paper. "Bambi, now you must talk to me like ve are making luff — maybe somevun listens. I write a note." Dear Mama, he wrote laboriously, while Bambi made appropriate noises,

I am a prisoner of der Mafia und die Mafia lady tomorrow shteals my serum und sells it, und her hoodlums kill me. So you must phone der F.B.I. und HURRY! To safe my life!!!!

He signed it XXX Papa, then passed it on to Bambi, who added a PS:

dear Mrs. Schimelhorn its all true, DONT phone Vala just call in the Feds. Its all TRUE Mrs. Shimelhorn I'll try to keep her off of him till they get down Love Bambi

Under the bed, Gustav-Adolf responded churlishly to all entreaties. "What th' hell is this, chump?' he growled in Cat. "Lugging me to this lousy joint with a goddam pantywaist sandbox, for Pete's sake! Y' think I'm queer? You play your own games. I'm gonna stay right here!"

He reacted the same way to Bambi's honeyed, "Nice kitty-kitty-kitty!"

Finally, lying on his stomach, and at the cost of a scratched wrist, Papa Schimmelhorn fetched him forth, still swearing. He removed the flea-collar, wrapped the note tightly round it, and tied it firmly with a thread from Bambi's pantyhose. Then, ignoring Gustav-Adolf's imprecations, he replaced the collar, and carried his friend over to the window.

"Suppose it just won't open?" whispered Bambi, pulling up on it.

"A lidtle harder," whispered Papa Schimmelhorn.

She heaved. The window opened a bare six inches.

"So we can't get away," she explained fearfully.

"It iss enough!" He put Gustav-Adolf on the sill; and Gustav-Adolf, uttering one more reproachful epithet, went out into the night. For an instant, he simply crouched there, reconnoitering. Five feet down and perhaps eight feet off, there was a branch. He tensed. He leaped. And he was gone.

"Now ve don't need to vorry," said Papa Schimmelhorn. "Ve can go back to bed."

Bambi allowed herself to be escorted there, but she did not share his resiliency. Again she sat down. "You said your serum's dangerous," she whispered. "Why's that? You — you told me it'd make people live five hundred years!"

"It iss not good for all people," he replied patiently. "Only if you are old und full of vinegar like me it vorks. If you are not, first it makes you very qvickly old — but if you get old vithout der vinegar it iss too bad!" He told her about his experiments in vivo with the mice, and about Gustav-Adolf, and how he himself had downed the fateful draught.

Beside him, Bambi shivered. "I—I wouldn't like that!" she declared. "Jesus, I never thought I'd sit here prayin' for the F.B.I., but I sure am now. What'll we do if they don't make it?"

"Ve shteal back der serum."

"I don't see how. She told me she's locked it in her safe, behind that WANTED picture of old Looey in her bedroom."

"I am a chenius, but not at opening safes." For the first time, Papa Schimmelhorn sounded a bit concerned. "Vell, ve maybe vork it out tomorrow."

There was a silence, and presently he felt Bambi creep under the covers next to him. "I— I never told anybody this before," she said into his ear, "because Augie made me promise never to. He was my boy friend before I married Siracusa, and I guess you'd say he was a safecracker, sort of. Anyhow that's what they called him at the trial. But it was him that taught me how. He said it was like, well, giving me real social security for my old age. I—I could open up that tin can of Mrs. C's in no time if I could get at it, but her suite is always locked except when she's there."

Papa Schimmelhorn patted her bottom reassuringly. "Goot! Now I know ve do not need to vorry — only vun more lidtle problem, und tomorrow I vill solfe it!"

He slept soundly and dreamed many a pleasant dream of chasing pretty little pussycats. Bambi, however, not being a genius and having a more intimate acquaintance with the Godmother and her ways, passed a restless night and rose with deep, dark circles under her brown eyes.

When she and Papa Schimmelhorn came down to breakfast, they found Mrs. Canicatti in high spirits, greeting them as though her intentions were thoroughly benign. "Well, I can see you really had yourself a ball," she twitted Bambi. "And I've been sort of busy too. Almost all my guests are here already, and they're eager to meet your Papa Schimmelhorn. Later on, I'll introduce them."

She did not mention that four uninvited guests had come in the small hours of the night, that they had been representatives of a rival Family (tipped off by Howie for a fat fee), and that they had been silently and efficiently disposed of, partly for the edification of Mr. Quicklime, who for professional reasons had been invited to attend.

Mrs. Luedesing's Cousin Albrecht had flown in from Zurich, bringing his company's chief of security, whose personality was reminiscent of Mr. Quicklime's. His Dutch rival, named van der Hoop, had come over from the Hague, accompanied by his own hulking security chief. And Mama Schimmelhorn, of course, had duly given them the phone number. The one-time S.S. man from South America had not yet arrived, but he was on his way, bringing with him a most important personage. All of them, having access to unusual sources of accurate information, had briefed themselves thoroughly on Papa Schimmelhorn's inventions, and they were eager to do business.

The S.S. man showed up just before luncheon, and his companion turned out to be no less a figure than the Dictator-Generalissimo of the small country where he had found refuge. With them came the nation's Minister of Internal Tranquility, who looked disquietingly like Robespierre.

They all took each other's measure instantly, and those not already acquainted with the Godmother assessed the situation accurately as soon as they were introduced. She, in turn, wasted no time in levelling with them. Having sent Papa Schimmelhorn and Bambi out to play in the swimming pool, she called a conference in the Chief Justice's library.

"Some of you," she said, over the polished mahogany of his table, "came here thinking you were going to buy the formula for a five-hundred-year serum. You aren't. Nobody is. Even old Schimmelhorn doesn't know what's in it, and — believe me! — no one is going to get a chance to analyze it. The situation's simple. I won't try to snow you with a lot of garbage about overpopulation. You are practical men. The entire supply is in this house. There is enough for maybe twenty people. And even twenty people with a five-hundred-year life span could be too many. I will be one of them. A few of my assistants, on whom I can rely, will join me. So will you, unless you turn down the opportunity — something both you and I would infinitely regret." She paused to let all this sink in. "We'll be the most powerful and exclusive club the world has ever seen. Our competition will be temporary, but we will not."

She sat back and let them buzz. There were questions and hypocritical objections, but from the outset it was obvious that she had made her point. Finally, looking down at his broad, well-manicured fingers, Cousin Albrecht quietly said, "How much?"

She smiled. "A price each of you can afford. From you, M'sieu, one million dollars worth of S.I.V.A. stock. From you, Mynheer van der Hoop, the same amount of stock in your cartel. From His Excellency the President and Generalissimo, from my old friend who was so kind as to bring him, and from my esteemed colleague Mr. — er — Quicklime, one million dollars each, in cash, deposited at my Swiss bank. My fees are modest, especially as they'll include free doses for your trusted colleagues here." She beamed at the Minister of Internal Tranquility and the security men, and felt the balance of good will shift in her direction. "You will arrange the transfer of stocks and funds this afternoon. Make each transaction irrevocable, to take effect automatically on your return. Tonight we'll have a banquet to celebrate. Then we shall drink a toast to one another in Schimmelhorn's liqueur. 'Long life!' I think would be appropriate."

"And how do we know, Madame," demanded van der Hoop, "that we will get what we are paying for?"

"Mynheer," she said, "I am the big frog in this little puddle. Here, what I say goes — but only here. Once you leave, any one of you can squash me easily — except that when you find I've kept my word you'll see that we can all be very useful to each other."

"How can we be sure," asked Mr. Quicklime's translator, "that this serum made by Academician Schimmelhorn will not poison us?"

"It didn't poison him. It didn't even hurt his tomcat, who drank a lot of it. And you can sit and watch — I'll drink it first. Okay?" She surveyed their faces, and read what each was thinking: five hundred years — a future by human standards virtually unlimited, in which to gain experience, amass personal fortunes, maneuver enemies to their destruction, build empires.

"A million dollars, that is nothing!" said the Generalissimo. "My people are hard-working. But I do not want to buy this serum and then find that more of it is made for any cholo with the money."

Abruptly, Medusa showed her face again. "I promise you —" The Godmother spoke softly. "— that no more will be made. Schimmelhorn is too dull-witted to grasp the potentialities of his invention; all he can think of is his pussy-chasing. He's also much too stupid to realize that I have plans for him. You understand?"

"Mr. Quicklime says he understands!" the translator cried. "He says is good, yes, yes! He stays to watch. Also he says okay, one million dollars!"

It took only a few more minutes for all of them to reach agreement, to make their inter-continental calls, to send their coded radiograms. Then Mrs. Canicatti, again the gracious hostess, summoned them to lunch, where they were joined by Bambi and Papa Schimmelhorn, the latter still attired in one of Mr. Canicatti's striped beach-robes, which was much too short for him. Throughout the meal he discussed his favorite topics, compared the physical endowment and state of preservation of the others — especially Mr. Quicklime's — unfavorably with his own, and flirted outrageously with the Godmother, occasionally introducing pointed little innuendos about the jolly time they had had in Switzerland.

Mrs. Canicatti sat through it frozen-faced, and only Bambi, watching, realized that Papa Schimmelhorn's popularity was dropping to an all-time low — and speculated tremblingly on the dreadful destiny which this might bring not only to him, but her.

The afternoon dragged endlessly. There was no sign of the F.B.I., and poor Bambi took turns praying to half-remembered saints, worrying about the misadventures which could overtake even an experienced tomcat with several miles to travel, and wishing that Papa Schimmelhorn would at least make some effort to behave decorously and not push quite so hard. He was in fine fettle. He offered to race anyone the length of the pool and back again, and enraged the Generalissimo by beating him and then shoving his head under water. He challenged all the younger men to Indian wrestle, proved to them that none could last longer than thirty seconds against his hairy forearm, and then advised them that they had been enfeebled by not chasing enough pretty pussycats. Finally, at the cocktail hour, Mrs. Ganicatti took Bambi to one side and told her, in a flat and absolutely deadly voice, "You — you get that miserable old bastard out of here! You were supposed to keep him simmered down. Take him up to your room, and lock him in. Then get yourself down to the kitchen and help Chong. I'm going up to take a bath and try to get relaxed."

Bambi obeyed her mutely, tactfully separating Papa Schimmelhorn from Mr. Quicklime, whom he was pounding on the back, and almost dragging him upstairs. She told him what had happened and what her orders were.

Papa Schimelhorn embraced her warmly. "It vorks," he whispered in her ear. "I tell you I am chenius!"

"Wh-what do you mean?" asked Bambi.

"I haff worried maybe a lidtle about Gustav-Adolf," he confessed, "dot maybe he has shtopped to haff a fight or chase a lidtle pussycat. So ve must shteal der serum. Und dot iss vhy I make my Vala angry — you vait und see. How can ve tell vhen she iss in der tub?"

"Her — her suite is right next door, and I remember sort of how we could hear the water in the pipes. It'll run quite a while for that big marble tub of hers, and she'll get in as soon as it gets full."

"Okay, ve vait," said Papa Schimmelhorn.

"B-b-but I'm supposed to — to lock you in," she bleated.

"You lock me in und go downstairs mit der Chineser cook. Maybe in fife minutes you come up again, und unlock. Vhen I go out und get into her rooms, you follow me. I keep her busy till der safe iss open. It takes how long?"

"M-m-maybe a minute, m-m-maybe two. It's a lead-pipe cinch, and once I saw her opening it and caught the first two numbers. B-but I'm scared!"

"Don't vorry!" He clasped her to his bosom. "Alvays you can trust Papa Schimmelhorn!"

She did as she was told. She locked him in and, hurrying to the kitchen, greeted Chong, a tall, elderly Chinese whom the Godmother had known in her Shanghai days. When asked how she could help, he pointed at a simmering kettle on the stove and informed her courteously that, in a few minutes, she could stir the soup. Its fragrance told her that it was a famous lobster bisque of his own invention, but she was in no mood to appreciate his artistry. Hastily, she told him she'd just remembered something and she'd be back directly, and rushed upstairs.

Papa Schimmelhorn was waiting for her. "Listen!" he whispered.

Bambi listened, and heard the murmuring of the pipes. They waited. Presently it ceased. He beckoned her over to the door, and peered out cautiously. No mafioso was in evidence. Then he tiptoed massively down the hall to the door she indicated, and opened it without a sound. She pointed tremulously at another door leading off the sitting room. It was partly open, and from behind it came the sounds of soft music and a muted splashing.

"H-her bathroom." Mutely, Bambi formed the words, and she pointed nervously at the framed WANTED poster on the wall.

Papa Schimmelhorn urged her on towards it. He himself gained the bathroom door, pushed it just a little.

"Who's there?" called the Godmother.

Coyly, he peered around the edge, and spied Mrs. Canicatti seated luxuriously in the sea of bright pink bubbles in her marble bath. "Peek-a-boo! Und I see you!" he cried out cheerily.

"Get out of here!" Caught off balance, the Godmother was not yet at her fearsome best. "What's wrong with you? Can't you see I'm in the tub?"

He chortled. "Naturlich! Dot's vhy I came! Ach, Vala, remember how in Schvitzerland sometimes ve took a bath together aftervards?" Sighing sentimentally, he dropped the beach-robe from his enormous shoulders. "How you vould rub der soap on me und I —"

At that point, Medusa did not flicker. She came on full force. The Godmother rose to her full height, dripping, and it was obvious that she was indeed well preserved.

"How beautiful!" exclaimed Papa Schimmelhorn. "Chust like Venus on der Half-Shell, only not so shkinny. Und vot a lofely tub, mit marble, und enough room inside for both of us. It vill be chust like old times!"

The last thing Mrs. Canicatti wanted at that moment was an uproar. What started as a scream of hideous rage she managed to compress into a banshee cry distinguished, not for its volume, but for its chill lethality.

In the bedroom, Bambi heard it just as the wall safe opened for her. She panicked. Almost dropping the precious pickle-jar, she pushed the safe quickly shut, shoved the picture of Lucky Looey back over it, and then, clutching the serum to her capacious breast, took off. All she could think of was that the Godmother must not find her there — that she must somehow gain the safety of the kitchen, where she had been ordered to remain. Down the back stairs she ran, luckily unseen. Chong had his back to her, busily chopping something with his Chinese cleaver. She glanced round desperately — and suddenly heard masculine voices in the hall. Without a second thought, she unscrewed the top, emptied the contents of the pickle-jar into Ghong's lobster-bisque, and dropped the jar itself behind the stove. By the time Goofball and Romeo entered, she was stirring desperately away, flushed and perspiring as though she had been at it for some time.

They came in — and a shrill bell pealed, twice and twice again. "Jeez!" grunted Romeo. "Mrs. C. sure wants somebody up there. Listen at her!"

"We better get right on it, like!" Goofball agreed, and they took off, leaving Bambi even more frightened than before.

Meanwhile, in Mrs. Canicatti's bathroom, Papa Schimmelhorn had continued to appeal to his one-time inamorata in terms of a passion she obviously did not reciprocate.

Standing there wet and naked, she cursed him in Russian, Chinese, and Sicillian, pointed her finger at the door, and said, "Get.. out... of... here!"

"But ve could haff such fun." He shook his head regretfully. "Und you haff such a pretty bottom shtill! Vell, maybe you haff lost der vinegar, und it iss now too late."

"GET... OUT! GET OUT, I said!" Mrs. Canicatti was stabbing fiercely at a bell-push. "You are going... to be locked up... in Bambi's room! And by God, this time my guys'll see you stay there!"

"Okay," said Papa Schimmelhorn, putting the robe on again. "I know vhen I'm not vanted. But it iss shtill a shame!"

"And that stupid damn Siracusa bitch is going with you! I ordered her to lock you in your cage — and she forgot! Or did you talk her out of it so you could get in here? Anyhow, the two of you can wait in there together — then you'll find out what I'm going to do to both of you!"

"Anyhow it vill be fun to shtay vith Bambi," he remarked philosophically. "Bye-bye, lidtle Vala."

He encountered Goofball and Romeo in the sitting room, and within five minutes he and a sobbing Bambi, who had been dragged up from the kitchen to face Mrs. Canicatti's wrath, were locked in together, with Romeo standing armed guard at the door.

"You haff der serum?" he asked her.

She nodded silently.

"It iss here?"

"N-n-no," she whispered. "I—I got real scared. Goofball and Romeo were coming in, so I—I just got rid of it where they can't ever find it."

"Goot!" He patted her. "Now eferything vill be okay. Vala cannot hurt anybody vith der serum, und pretty soon comes der F.B.I. You think maybe she looks inside der safe before?"

Bambi stifled her sobs. "N-no. I—I don't think so. She won't take any chances with it in the open till she's about to serve it. Then she'll go get it, with Goofball and a couple others to help keep it safe. I—I h-h-hope!"

"Don t vorry," said Papa Schimmelhorn. "Gustav-Adolf brings der F.B.I. For a cat, he also iss a chenius!"

Gustav-Adolf was, as a matter of fact, much superior to most cats. Having reached the ground, he first availed himself of the great cat-box Nature had provided, then took off on a beeline for his home where, he knew, he would be welcome to sit on Mama Schimmelhorn's stiff black silk lap and purr, and listen to her comparing him more than favorably to her wayward husband. Unfortunately, however, he was soon distracted by the lilting love song of a little tortoiseshell, whom he found complaisant and fdr whom, as a memento of his favors, he caught a mouse. In the process, he found it necessary to teach good manners to two lesser tomcats and an intrusive springer spaniel. Then he caught another mouse for breakfast, watched for two hours at a rathole, napped for an hour or two, and went his way after the sun had risen. The day too was full of its distractions, and it was late afternoon when finally he meowed at Mama Schimmelhorn's back door. Indeed, his entrance coincided precisely with Papa Schimmelhorn's and Bambi's attack upon the wall safe.

"Vhere haff you been, you vicked cat?" demanded Mama Schimmelhorn.

"With yer old man, that's where," Gustav-Adolf said in Cat, and went on to complain about how Papa Schimmelhorn had tried to make him use a goddam cat-box.

"Poor Gustav-Adolf," crooned Mama Schimmelhorn. "Und now he comes home hungry? Poor lidtle kitty-cat."

"Damn right!" He rubbed against her, purring raucously. "A hunk o' liver would go down real good."

Suddenly, reaching down to pet him, she spied the collar. "Vot iss?" she exclaimed. "Nefer haff ve put a collar on mein Gustav-Adolf! Maybe die Vomen's Libbers? Und vith a dirty piece of paper —" She pulled the collar off over his head, and untied the thread. "— probably mit cherms!" Then, on the point of tossing the paper in the wastebasket, she glanced at it and frowned. "Ach! A note from Papa? Maybe he makes a joke." She read it slowly, frowned, read it aloud to Gustav-Adolf. "Vhat does it mean, der Mafia? Und der FB. und I.? Der Mafia iss against der law. I think about it, but first I giff mein Gustav-Adolf some nice beef heart."

She sliced up the beef heart, placed it on a platter, and watched with pleasure as it was devoured.

"Vot vill I do?" she asked. "If it iss chust Papa, I know it iss a joke. But also there iss Mrs. Siracusa, who is a good girl." She thought about it until Gustav-Adolf, having cleaned his plate, began to wash himself. Then she made up her mind. "Okay, because of Bambi better I take no chances. I phone der F.B. und I."

She looked the number up, dialed it, asked if she could speak with Mr. Hoover, was told that he no longer was available, and condescended to discuss her problem with someone less impressive. The agent listened to her not-too-clear account of something that sounded like a kidnapping by Women's Lib or perhaps the Mafia, though she didn't really think so. Then he asked her to explain the motive. To get her famous husband's serum, she informed him, which would make people live five hundred years.

"And what did you say your husband's name is?" the agent asked.

"Papa Schimmelhorn," she told him. "He iss a chenius."

Something rang a bell, and the agent transferred the call to his superior. The Agent in Charge also listened politely. Then, having recognized the name, he patiently explained to Mama Schimmelhorn that his office could not take the alleged motive seriously. "Madam," he said kindly, "I'm sure your husband is a very clever man, but you must remember that after the episode of the so-called gnurrs, a joint Congressional committee investigated the affair and determined this his gnurrpfeife had nothing whatsoever to do with it, and that actually it was nothing more than a plague of lemmings. We can scarcely base any action on the presumed value of another such invention."

"Nonsense!" snapped Mama Schimmelhorn. "Lemmings do not eat people's pants! Und der head of Vomen's Lib herself beliefes in it — a shmart voman named Val Canicatti, who vears trousers und shmokes cigars. She has taken my Papa to a house party, und now he writes he is der prisoner of der Mafia."

There was dead silence at the other end. Then somebody said Whee-ew! and the Agent in Charge was on the line again.

"Why didn't you say Vala Canicatti?" he barked.

"I chust did!" answered Mama Schimmelhorn.

"Well, never mind. Mrs. Schimmelhorn, you sit tight right there. Don't phone anyone. Don't open your door no matter what until we get there. And save that note saying he is a prisoner. I'll pick you up directly."

"But I do not know vhere Papa iss!"

"Never mind," he told her grimly. "We do. Let's hope we get out there in time!"

Within ten minutes, a car full of F.B.I, agents picked her up, tightly furled black umbrella and all, and sped into the newly fallen night to rendezvous with others of its kind, with sheriff's deputies, and state investigators, and other less well known enforcement officers.

She was escorted from her house just as the Godmother's banquet got under way. The table in the great dining room was laid with damask and with Haviland, with precious crystal and fine sterling silver. Rare wines were ready for the pouring. Mrs. Canicatti's five lieutenants flanked her, uncomfortable in evening dress not worn since Lucky Looey's splendid funeral, their molls strangely bedecked in spangled evening gowns, extraordinary wigs, ill-gotten diamonds and orchidaceous corsages. Her several guests faced her across the table, Cousin Albrecht and Mynheer van der Hoop striving to suppress superior smiles, the Generalissimo sniffing the air hungrily, and Mr. Quicklime and the rest staring with varying degrees of amazement at the panoply before them. The Godmother herself, attired expensively and in excellent, if somewhat splashy, taste, greeted them and gave the signal for the feast to start.

Two or three minor mafiosi and their girls had been pressed into service as waiters and waitresses. Now they wheeled in a cart bearing a magnificent tureen, and — Romeo presiding — ceremoniously began the service of the soup. "Jesus, Romeo," one of them muttered as he held a plate, "old Chong sure must've been workin' hard. Boy, all of a sudden like does he look old!" And Romeo answered that was the way it was with Chinamen. "Christ, you can't tell how old the buggers are by thirty years! Anyhow, this soup smells real good."

The soup was served out quickly and efficiently, while the Godmother told them how she had rescued her great chef from his career as a river-pirate, and how he had named this special dish Lobster Bisque a la Vala Canicatti. And she added that she was serving it to them because it was so celebrated, even though she herself was now allergic to the lobster. She would, she said, take her pleasure in watching their enjoyment.

There was a quick round of polite applause, and they set to —

And upstairs, Bambi clung to Papa Schimmelhorn, and asked him again when the F.B.I. would come.

"Gustav-Adolf alvays comes home for supper," he assured her. "Soon they are on der vay. If they arrife before she comes upshtairs to get der serum, ve are okay. You are sure she cannot find it before then?"

Bambi nodded tearfully. "I—I dumped it in the soup," she sobbed.

"Gott in Himmel!" he cried out. "Bambi, do you realize vhat you haff done? Dot soup they are now maybe serfing! In a few minutes der Mafia all vill know! Und then vhat happens?"

Bambi moaned dolefully —

And in the dining room, the Godmother stared at Goofbail's hand, holding its silver spoon a foot away. She glanced aside at his lady's too-deep decolletage — surely her skin had not hung in such crepe creases when she first came in? Surely the flesh on her full arms had not hung so revealingly from her large bones? She looked from left to right. She saw gray hair where there had been black. She heard the shrill, senile cackle of Cousin Albrecht's laughter —

And suddenly she knew just what had happened. She knew instinctively just how the serum worked — and how it worked on whom. She knew that for the second time in her life a man had tricked her — the same man. Rage and pure horror animated her. She stood. She called to Romeo. He had noticed nothing. He came to her. "Take your two boys," she ordered, in a voice no follower of hers could disobey. "Get up to Bambi's room right now. Don't wait for anything. Wipe out that Schimmelhorn — I don't care how. And finish Bambi too. Then bring their heads or something down to me!"

Gesturing to his men, Romeo left the room hurriedly. Now certain other lesser folk started to realize that something strange was going on. There was commotion: shouts and frightened exclamations and runnings back and forth. Only the company around the table noticed no change, detected nothing wrong.

The noises carried to the prisoners on the second floor. They heard the heavy running footsteps of Romeo and his boys, the scraping of a key inserted in the lock. Bambi whimpered pitifully. Papa Schimmelhorn braced himself against the door —

And suddenly there were a dozen shots outside, some cracking sharply from pistols and revolvers, more booming from buckshot-loaded riot guns.

"Vot did I tell you?" cried Papa Schimmelhorn exultantly. "Comes der cafalry!"

The  Mansion was invested, assaulted, occupied in minutes, the morale of its defenders shattered by what had happened to their leaders. In no time, law officers were everywhere. Romeo and his surviving fellows had been taken into custody. Papa Schimmelhorn and Bambi had been rescued and brought downstairs. Finally, with everything secure, Mama Schimmelhorn was escorted in to greet her husband and to view the victory.

The dining room was a distressing sight, for the S.O.D.O.M. Serum worked as swiftly and relentlessly with people as with mice. Around the table sat, and stood, and capered a group of aged men and women strangely and pathetically overdressed, their finery hanging from their wasted frames. A third of them had fallen to the floor or collapsed over their place-settings, having obviously just perished of old age. A few others were quite as obviously about to. Mr. Quicklime, toothlessly drooling now, was fumbling foolishly with a Tokarev automatic, which an agent gently took away from him. The Godmother, all Medusa, stood handcuffed to an enormous deputy, cursing in a variety of unknown languages.

Mama Schimmelhorn strode in between two agents. "Vell!" she exclaimed at the sight. "So dot's vhat Vomen's Lib iss all about!" She caught sight of her husband. "You should be ashamed," she said. "Is not enough you play vith naked vomen. Now you make silly shenanigans vith old people!"

Beaming, the Agent in Charge came up to her. "Thank God you called us, Mrs. Schimmelhorn! " he told her fervently. "You have performed a great service to the community and in the cause of law and order and clean government. This Canicatti woman's committed every crime in the book — murder, dope, blackmail, you name it. Now, thanks to you, we have her dead to rights!"

"That's God's truth!" echoed a state investigator.

"Vot for?" asked Mama Schimmelhorn.

"Running an old folks' home without a license!" He slapped his notebook. "Failure to provide adequate medical assistance. No licensed dietitian on the premises. No certified gerontologist. Hell, we'll get her on about twenty counts. This is the sort of job you really get convictions on!"

Again they thanked her. They informed her that nurses and doctors were on the way to care for the victims of the Godmother's neglect. They assured her that letters of appreciation would be sent to her at least from the Governor and Attorney General.

Generously, she told them that Bambi Siracusa also deserved credit. "Und now," she stated, "I take Papa home."

"We'll drive you," the Agent in Charge told her respectfully.

Papa Schimmelhorn was whispering in the ear of an ancient but robust Chinese who had come out of the kitchen, and who was listening to him with every appearance of delight. "On Herr Chong it vorked," he announced to all and sundry, "because he iss full of vinegar like me!"

The room was emptying. The mafiosi had all been removed. The Godmother, squalling hideously, had been led away.

Mama Schimmelhorn's eyes flashed fire. She lifted her umbrella threateningly. "Ve go!" she announced.

"Goodnight, Bambi," Papa Schimmelhorn said sadly.

"You are a nice girl, Bambi," declared Mama Schimmelhorn. "Soon you come ofer und ve drink some tea." She shooed her husband to the door. "So now der serum iss all gone?" she asked him when, for a moment, they were out of earshot.

Papa Schimmelhorn, conscience-stricken, stuttered apologetically that it was a shame, that he did not mean to use it all, that had he even dreamed the way things would turn out, he would never have hurt Mama's feelings by chasing so many lidtle pussycats.

"So," she said, "now you are sorry because you liff fife hundred years und Mama liffs maybe only ten, nicht wahr?"

He blew his nose unhappily into a red bandana handkerchief.

"Veil, shmart guy, I find out something in der basement you do not know." She reached up and grasped him firmly by the ear. "Your serum, dunderkopf, is not chust a S.O.D.O.M. Serum. It iss a C.O.W. Serum also."

"Vot iss, a C.O.W.?"

"It iss a serum for Clean Old Women vith lots of vinegar," said Mama Schimmelhorn. She smiled grimly. "Papa, ve shtay together now a long, long time!"

Table of Contents

Start