"Tonic!" Joyce sniffed. "Liquor, you mean!"

"Now that's not right," Grampa objected. "I said tonic and I mean tonic. Got a little alcohol in it for a preservative, maybe, but the important part is the minerals. That's the Longevity Institute's secret. It's what keeps me young. Want a little nip?" He leered at Joyce.

"You mean you got Fweep drunk?" Fred exclaimed.

"Well, now, that was the _effect_, but I can't swear it was the alcohol. Not unless Fweep can use the stuff on the molecular level if he wants. On the other hand, maybe it was the minerals in there that affected him. Little world like Fweepland, maybe it lacked a few things when it was made. But the way I looked at it, it stood to reason the little fellow could use a drink. Alone all these centuries, he must've got pretty dry. But whatever it was, he sure got high. Lost all control."

"Poor Fweep," Reba murmured.

"Poor nothing," Grampa said. "He was the happiest little critter I ever saw. When Four explained to him just what we wanted, he went right to work on that bottle and--"

Gramp's door swung open once more. "Grampa! Grampa!" Four shouted. "Fweep! He--I mean--well, we've been calling him by the wrong pronoun. Look!"

Four came running out of the room. Behind him rolled a tiny raspberry sphere about the size of a marble. Occasionally it hopped in the air and said, "Fweep?" in a small, high voice.

Behind it rolled and hopped a second raspberry marble. "Fweep?" it said. Behind it came another and another until the cabin was full of them, rolling, bouncing, calling "Fweep?"

Dazedly, Junior counted them. "One hundred and one, one hundred and two, one hundred and--"

"Oh, Junior," Reba said, hugging him excitedly. "Aren't they cute?"

"What happened?" Grampa asked, as dazed as Junior.

"Maybe it was the tonic," Four said, "but I suspect it was the the unpolarized gravity. All of a sudden, Fweep started splitting like an amoeba, over and over. Do you suppose that was what made him nervous?"

"That's the way the little fellow reproduces, all right," said Grampa. "I wonder if he has to wait until a race becomes civilized enough to discover the polarizer, eh?"

"Ugh!" 

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