solve a case."

"And now you have amended your motto to 'to the end of the Earth and beyond'?"

"We have."

"But what have the Polite People to do with murder? Crime is unknown on Pudibundia."

"We believe, saving their feelings, that it may not be unknown there. And what I am going to find out is this. There have been pilots for many years who have brought back stories of the Puds, and there are still a few--a very few--young pilots alive to tell those stories. What I am going to find out is why there are no old pilots around telling those stories."

It wasn't much of a trip for a tripper, six weeks. And Marlow was well received. His host also assumed the name of Marlow out of politeness. It would have been impossible to render his own name in human speech, and it would have been impossible for him to conceive of using any name except that of his guest, with its modifiers. Yet there was no confusion. Marlow was Marlow, and his host was the One-Million-Times-Lesser-Marlow.

"We could progress much faster," said Marlow, "if we dispensed with these formalities."

"Or assumed them as already spoken," said the One-Million-Times-Lesser-Marlow. "For this, in private, but only in the strictest privacy, we use the deferential ball. Within it are all the formulae written minutely. You have but to pass the ball from hand to hand every time you speak, and it is as if the amenities were spoken. I will give you this for the time of your stay. I beg you never to forget to pass it from hand to hand every time you speak. Should you forget, I would not, of course, be allowed to notice it. But when you were gone, I should be forced to kill myself for the shame of it. For private reasons I wish to avoid this and therefore beseech you to be careful."

The One-Million-Times-Lesser-Marlow (hereafter to be called OMTLM for convenience but not out of any lack of politeness) gave Marlow a deferential ball, about the size of a ping-pong ball. And so they talked.

"As a police official, I am particularly interested in the crime situation on Pud," said Marlow. "An index of zero is--well, if I could find a politer word I would use it--suspicious. And as you are, as well as I can determine, the head police official here, though in politeness your office would have another name, I am hoping that you can give me information.""Saving your grace, and formula of a formula, what would you have me tell you 

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