mink-lined fact," she agreed. "But this is in no way your fault. You are simply an unfortunate victim of an extreme variation from the electric norm. You have what we bio-electronicists call a rogue symbiotic waveform."

She could be right. Big-electronics was a little out of my line. I didn't feel I knew enough about the subject to argue. "What throws me," I said, "is why I should reciprocate your revulsion. I mean, ordinarily I am a sort of good-natured slob. I don't often get mad—not even at kindly old ladies."

It seemed Panda also had a theory about that. "This antagonism undoubtedly stems from the fact that we are at opposite ends of the symbiotic scale," she said. "We are a hundred per cent incompatible."

We drove around for a couple of hours before I dropped her off at her apartment in Santa Monica. When I finally left, I found I was committed to escorting her down to Long Beach, where I was wrestling that next night. I wanted that date the way a guy on his way to the electric chair wants to sit down.

The Long Beach match turned out to be one of my best performances. The sight of Panda sitting there in the front row, her face contorted in a livid mask of hatred, was positively inspiring. When I finally made my victor's march up the aisle, the place was a howling bedlam. Those kindly old ladies were leaping from seat to seat like spindle-legged Tarzans.

Leo was all molars by the time we got back down to the dressing room. "Freddy," he chortled, "tonight you were great. I hear the TV switchboard is jammed with people calling up to swear they will slay you on sight. But slow and painful!"

I told Leo I was happy to learn I was such a success. "You have never been nastier," he assured me expansively. "It must be that dame with the striped hair who was sitting at ringside. She had a high-tone way of screaming for your blood that was very smart box office. Maybe I should step out and give her a couple of free ducats."

I told Leo he needn't bother. "I don't think Panda wants any free ducats," I said. He looked surprised. "You mean you are acquainted with this piebald babe, Freddy?"

"She came with me," I admitted glumly. "She's a Ph.D. and she lives in Santa Monica."

"Freddy," he murmured, shaking his head in honest admiration, "sometimes I think you are a much smarter boy than I always figured. What an act your girl put on 

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