politeness, but in a way all the other Persons also. One of them could not call you by your name, Marlow. He would have to say: 'One hears of one who hears of one of the noble name of Marlow. One hears of one even now in his presence.'"

"Yes, that is quite a polite way of saying it. But it would seem that with all their circumlocutions they would be inefficient."

"Yet they are quite efficient. They do things so well that it is almost imperative that we learn from them. Yet for all our contacts, for all their extreme politeness coupled with their seeming openness, we have been able to learn almost nothing. We cannot learn the secret of the amazing productivity of their fields. According to Sharper, another of the young pilots, they suggest (though so circumspectly that it seems hardly a suggestion, certainly not a criticism) that if we were more polite to our own plants, the plants would be more productive for us; and if we gave the plants the ultimate of politeness, they would give us the ultimate of production."

"Could I talk to Sharper, or is he also--"

"No, he is not dead. He was quite well till the last several days. Now, however, he is ailing, but I believe it will be possible for you to talk to him before you leave if he does not worsen."

"It would still seem difficult for the Puds to get anything done. Wouldn't a superior be too polite to give a reprimand to an inferior?"

"Probably. But Masters, who visited them, had a theory about it, which is that the inferior would be so polite and deferential that he would do his best to anticipate a wish or a desire, or would go to any lengths to learn the import of an unvoiced preference."

"Is Masters one of the young pilots?"

"No, an old-timer."

"Now you do interest me."

"Dead quite a few years. But it is you who interest me, Marlow. I have been told to give you all the information you need about the Polite People of Pudibundia. And on the subject of the Polite People, I must also be polite. But--saving your presence, and one hears of one who hears, and all that--what in Gehenna is a captain in Homicide on the Solar Police Force going to Pudibundia about?"

"About murder. That is all I ever go anywhere about. We once had a private motto that we would go to the end of the Earth to 

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