all go in to support Meadows. I stayed with my drink until Jorgensen drifted in to have a couple with me and talk of the old days.

After a while, one of his helpers came up and murmured something into his big red ear. He shrugged and waved his hand.

The next time it happened, about twenty minutes later, I was on the point of matching him with a story about a petrified ancient Martian that the domers at Schiaparelli dug out of a dry canal. Jorgensen lowered his faded eyebrows and strode off like a bear on egg-shells, leaving me there with the unspoken punch line about what they were supposed to have dug up with the Martian.

Well, that build-up was wasted, I thought.

Quite a number of sandeaters, as time passed, seemed to drift in and out of the back room. Finally, Howlet showed up again.

"How'd you make out?" I asked when he had a drink in his hand.

"I left my usual deposit," he grinned, "but you ought to see Meadows! Is he ever plugging their pipes! He ran Mercury to Pluto, and it paid off big."

"It ought to; no one ever makes it."

"He did it twice! Plus other combinations. With him making out our daily menus, I'll never know why I'm not lucky too. Know what he's doing?"

I lifted an eyebrow.

"He's lending money to every loafer that puts the beam on him. But the guy has to show a non-transferrable ticket for passage to Earth."

"Darn few can," I grunted.

"That's why he keeps sending them out with the price of one and the promise to stake them when they get back. I never saw such expressions!"

At that point, Jorgensen sailed through the curtained doorway between the bar and back room. A craggy, desert look had settled on his red moon-face. He introduced me to two men with him as if someone were counting down from ten.

"Glad to meet you and Mr. Howlet," said the one called McNaughton.

I recognized "Mr. V'n Uh" as Van Etten, a leading citizen of the dome who had been agitating with McNaughton and others 

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