"She dance all day, huh, Clocker?" asked Oil Pocket, the Oklahoma Cherokee who, with the income of several wells, was famed for angeling bareback shows. He had a glass of tequila in one hand, the salted half of a lemon in the other. "She dance good?" "That's just it," Clocker said. "She does these time-steps, the first thing you learn in hoofing, over and over, ten-fifteen hours a day. And she keeps talking like she's giving lessons to some jerk kid who can't get it straight. And she was the kid with the hot routines, remember." "The hottest," agreed Arnold Wilson Wyle. "Zelda doing time-steps is like Heifetz fiddling at weddings." "I still like to put her in show," Oil Pocket grunted. "She stacked like brick tepee. Don't have to dance good." "You'll have a long wait," observed Doc sympathetically, "in spite of what our young friend here says. Continue, young friend." Clocker spread his charts. He needed the whole table. The others removed their drinks, Handy Sam putting his on the floor so he could reach it more easily. "This is what I got out of checking all the screwball factories I could reach personal and by mail," Clocker said. "I went around and talked to the doctors and watched the patients in the places near here, and wrote to the places I couldn't get to. Then I broke everything down like it was a stud and track record." Buttonhole tugged Doc's lapel. "That ain't scientific, I suppose," he challenged. "Duplication of effort," Doc replied, patiently allowing Buttonhole to retain his grip. "It was all done in an organized fashion over a period of more than half a century. But let us hear the rest." * * * * * "First," said Clocker, "there are more male bats than fillies." "Females are inherently more stable, perhaps because they have a more balanced chromosome arrangement." "There are more nuts in the brain rackets than labor chumps." "Intellectual activity increases the area of conflict." "There are less in the sticks than in the cities, and practically none among the savages. I mean real savages," Clocker told Handy Sam, "not marks for con merchants." "I was wondering," Handy Sam admitted. "Complex civilization creates psychic insecurity," said Doc. "When these catatonics pull out, they don't remember much or maybe nothing," Clocker went on, referring to his charts. Doc nodded his shaggy white head. "Protective amnesia." "I seen hundreds of these mental gimps. They work harder and longer at what they're doing, even just laying down and doing nothing, than they ever did when they were regular citizens." "Concentration of psychic energy, of course." "And they don't get a damn cent for it." * * * * * Doc hesitated, put down his half-filled tumbler. "I beg your pardon?"