wanted to run the show.

Mr. Picks shook his head sadly when I told him to replace me permanently.

"You have a great future ahead of you in studs and neck clasps," he said. "Why not take a little time and reconsider your decision? Or—"

"Nevermore," I answered.

Not until five years later did I find out what happened to the rest of good old Uncle Algernon's fortune.

I was stretched out on a gently undulating force-field in my interior patio, a huge, scarlet fan-flower tree sifting in the sunshine. Leda, her pink hair flowing down to her knees, was just emerging from the pool of grilch milk. She bent to an Aphrodite of Cnidos position.

"Perfect!" I said, and threw away my cigarene.

"Depart!" I told the robot, who came rolling in.

"But, master, it's the Cha'n of Betelgeuse, Lord of the Seven Planets and the Four Hundred Moons."

"Get dressed, Leda," I said regretfully. "We have company."

I'd never met him, but I knew he was one of Uncle Isadore's best friends and I felt obliged to see him.

The Cha'n had several meals and four cigarenes, maintaining a courteous silence all the while. Then he loosened his belt, reached into his furry pouch and handed me a piece of copper scroll.

It was a check for five million dollars.

"You won," he told me. "Or lost, as the case may be."

I just looked at him.

"I was holding it in trust for you," the Cha'n explained, "in accordance with your Uncle Isadore's last wishes."

I blew a perfect smoke ring, let it float before my face for a perfect moment, and then asked, "And suppose I had lost? Or won, as the case may be?"

"I was to save it to try on your son, the gods permitting you have one."

"If necessary," I told him, "I'll try it on him myself, O Cha'n of the Seven Planets and the Four Hundred Moons."

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