the true spirit of the trip.

Until then they had been content to sit quietly drinking from their bottles, but now, with the green fields and trees unfolding before them they were moved to song. Lifting their voices in shattering discord, they howled out a little number about an unfortunate heroine called Underslung Fannie whose amorous exploits, according to the lyrics, were distressingly uncanny. At the rear of the bus, Marc slunk in his seat and turned to Toffee.

"Leave it to you," he moaned. "How am I ever going to palm off this tight little segment of the underworld as a bunch of fun-loving botanists?"

"Oh, they're not so bad," Toffee said. "At least you don't have to worry about whether they're bad or not. You know they're bad right from the beginning."

"And so are you," Marc said dryly. "However, I suppose everyone seeks his own level. I might have expected this."

Toffee generously patted his cheek. "You're just overwrought," she said. "You need a drink." Reaching under her seat, she brought out the bottle of champagne. "Take some of this and you will see everything in a happy glow."

"Behind these glasses?" Marc asked.

"You may even find the nerve to take them off," Toffee said.

"In this crowd?" Marc said. "Heaven forbid!"

Nevertheless, after several lengthy drafts from the bottle, Marc did begin to see things more brightly, and he did remove his glasses. It gave the congregation before him a strange, bare-shouldered look, but the effect, since everyone was seated, was hardly shocking. He was careful, however, to keep his gaze averted from the passing landscape, particularly after a startling view of a pink-skinned, full-formed farmgirl scattering feed to a flock of hideously defeathered chickens. After a time he began to look on his new-found companions a bit more fondly.

"At least," he yawned, mellowed by the champagne and the warm sun, "they're a happy bunch of criminals."

As though to prove his words correct, the company suddenly roared with laughter, and Marc, content that things were going well, put his head back against the seat and dozed off.

The burst of laughter, however, had Marc listened more closely to it, was more a cause for alarm than complacency. In its 

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