Mr.—"

"Xhanph. But before you go further—"

"Got into the stereo game when they first came out. Went like hotcakes in those days. Although I don't suppose you know what a hotcake is. Quality didn't count. Only thing that counted was size of screen and strength of the three-dimensional effect. Mr. Gloopher—he was Mayor then—Robert F. Gloopher—had a daughter who went in for acting...."

Not for the first time, Xhanph cursed this damnable planet. The only man he had found willing to talk was senile and his conversation rambled wildly like a feather in a strong and particularly erratic whirlwind. Still, he told himself with a touch of philosophy, I have wasted so much time, I can afford to waste a little more. Sooner or later this individual will tell me what I want to know.

Half an hour later, however, when Jefferson J. Gardner began to repeat himself, Xhanph realized that he couldn't just wait for the old man to talk himself out. Different tactics were needed.

He interrupted rudely. "Why don't people pay any attention to me?"

"Eh? What's that you say?"

"I come from the planet, Gfun. I thought that as an interplanetary visitor I would be received with tremendous enthusiasm. Instead I find myself disregarded."

"I recollect that back in the old days—"

"Never mind that. Why don't people pay any attention to me?"

"Why should they?"

"That is no answer!"

"But it is, sir," said the old gentleman with dignity. "They don't find you out of the ordinary. Why pay attention to you?"

"You mean that you are accustomed to visitors from space?"

"No, sir, I mean nothing of the kind. What I do mean is that we are by now thoroughly accustomed to the idea of you. I remember—"

"Never mind what you remember!"

"When I was a child, stories about visitors from Mars or Venus were already trite and stereotyped. What could a visitor do? What might a visitor look like? All the 

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