playing over and over, I could almost be enjoying myself."

"Yeah. I'm getting tired of it myself. But would you rather be listening to 'I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles?'"

The Earth was just a shrinking, shining disc but neither of us could resist grabbing a fast look at it, now and then. It meant my grocery and Edna, Fatty's service station and his option on the Winthrop store. Home, 'mid planets and galaxies....

We got sleepy and pulled down the sails which weren't being overwhelmingly useful at the time. We rolled them up into a sort of mattress and, together with some blankets Fatty had in the cockpit, made ourselves a fairish bed.

When we woke out of a mutual nightmare in which Fatty and I were being dissected by a couple of oyster stews, there were two complete steak dinners on deck. That is, two for me and two for Fatty. We had a grapefruit and a glass of milk apiece and got rid of the rest. We lounged around uncomfortably and cursed the composer of 'Did Your Mother Come From Ireland?' I couldn't understand how I'd ever liked that song.

I didn't think too much of the sloop, either. It was one of the most idiotic boats I'd ever seen, narrow, hard, uninteresting lines. If I ever bought a boat it wouldn't be a sloop.

We shucked our clothes off and went for a swim around the edges. Fatty floated on his back, his immense belly rising above the surface, while I dived down and played tag with the mackerel.

Around us was nothing but the universe. Stars, stars and still more stars. I'd have given anything for a street-light.

We climbed back in the boat to find another steak dinner waiting. The swim had made us hungry, so we ate about a quarter of it.

"Not very efficient," Fatty grumbled. "I mean that green monster. Some way or other—telepathy, maybe—he figured we liked certain things. Steak dinners, special tobacco, a song. He didn't bother to go into it any further and find out how much of those things we liked—and how often. Careless workmanship."

"Talk about carelessness," I shot at him. "You wanted to go out and take a look at him when he first came into the cove. You were at the tiller and couldn't even get us about in time. You didn't see he was chasing us until he was abreast!"

His little eyes boiled red. "I was at the tiller, but what 

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