was still Lucky Jim Sanders, wearing a golden halo!

Pete's eyes were shining like Halley's Comet when I got through coaching him. It was his idea, but when I tossed it back at him wrapped up in dialogue the sparkle took his breath away!

We went down into the valley where the ships stood row on row, shouting and reeling as though we'd been celebrating for a week. The yardmaster heard us before he saw us. But he saw us quickly enough.

His lips tightened as he came striding toward us—a bushy-browed, hard-bitten old barnacle with a crusty stare. I could tell the exact instant when he recognized me. His jaw dropped about six inches; then closed with a click.

"Now!" I whispered to Pete.

Pete raised his voice. "You're higher than a kite!" he shouted. "Why buy a flying coffin when you could own the sweetest little job in the System?"

"What I do with my dough is my own business!" I shouted back. "They knew how to build ships in the old days!"

"I tell you—you're crazier than a diving loon!"

"Sure I'm crazy!" I agreed. "Only a baby with curvature of the brain could win back a cool eighty thousand on one spin of the wheel! But I'm sane enough not to want to thin out my take!"

"You'd flip a coin for one o' those flyin' coffins?"

"Why not?" I roared belligerently. "I've got five thousand that says I know what I'm doing! Five thousand against—the right to pick my own ship!"

I tripped myself then, deliberately by accident. I went sprawling over Pete's out-thrust right leg. When I picked myself up I must have looked as helpless as a new-born babe, because the yardmaster was gripping my arm and refusing to let go.

"You were saying, mister?"

He was seeing the halo, of course, the rim of gold about my head. I was pretty sure he wouldn't even ask me to cover my bet.

The copper piece on my palm seemed to fascinate him. He couldn't take his eyes from it.

"What will it be?" I asked.

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