"Two beers," I ordered, ruefully counting out the exorbitant amount I had learned was necessary. Drake seemed to brighten a little at that. Going right out of our pockets into his, the bum. We stoked our holds in a hurry, ordered a couple more and gave Outhouse the high sign. He started toward us and the bevy of beauties followed along automatically. Reminded me of a barnyard. "Hi, folks," he greeted us. "Look what I got it." The three girls giggled. Drake and his buddies sat and brooded. I kept an eye on them just to see when things got started. Listless was aware of them too, 'cause I saw him tenderly feel his hip pocket for his applicator. That's what he called it. But Murphy had told him about that gadget. He said it was called a brass knuckle in the old days. Listless of course, had to be high-toned and make it out of plastic on his little press. The more we talked and laughed and the noisier we got, the glummer the other three became. I guess they wanted silence. Finally they looked at each other. I gave Murphy the nudge. "Routine Three," I whispered. I loved that one. And we weren't feeling too frisky yet. Not that we wanted to avoid a fight, you understand, but we had two more days of healthy drinking to do if we wanted to preserve our record. Murphy nodded his agreement to my suggestion and I strolled over to the slot machine control and put a coin in the smoothest, dreamiest, slowest dance number I could pick out. The music controlled the gravity strength of the floor, and with that piece I knew there wouldn't be enough field to flatten a quart of quicksilver. Outhouse carefully detached his arm from where it was, made sure there was plenty of room then turned and thumbed his nose at the boys. They snarled and jumped for him. Tsk, tsk, I thought, is that what Dudley learned in college? For Murphy bent his knees, stretched out his arms and gathered them in. In two steps he made the dance floor and tossed them gently up over it. While they scrambled and twisted, weightlessly, trying to get down, we grabbed the three girls. All of us charged through the door and into a 'copter. "Now where?" asked Lomack after we had lost ourselves in a traffic level. "Any place where we can test Drake's products," I told him. "Then the next time we meet him we'll really have something to yell about." * * * * * "C'mon on, Doc. Wake up! Something's happened." "Hrrmph, brrrp, splat, phtooey," I replied as intelligibly as was possible under the circumstances. I opened my eyes and couldn't see a thing. "Snap out of it. Hurry up." It was Listless' voice whispering through the darkness.