I looked around the galley. Other than myself, of course, no one was there, and certainly the various cupboards were much too small to harbor a secret onlooker. A secret onlooker indeed! Angry with myself, I put the matter from my mind, concluding that the condition of the yumquat trees had depressed me to a greater extent than I had realized, and that I had fallen prey to preposterous imaginings. I wish now that I had been less eager to ascribe what proved to be a perfectly valid psychosensory perception to my emotional letdown. I ate ravenously, devouring both of the steaks and the entire loaf of bread. Afterward, a feeling of peace and good will stole over me, and on an impulse I called the Uterium 5 snirk bird down from its perch above the galley doorway and persuaded it by means of a crust of bread to perch upon my forefinger. Despite the large and ovoid xanthous droppings which these birds sporadically deposit on chairs, tables and floors, they make wonderful pets, and I envied the particular customer who was to receive this one--a tiny, bright-eyed female--as a partial bonus for his yumquat-tree order. The other components of his bonus--the toy friddlefork and the two containers of yellow trading disks--stood on a shelf just behind me, and reaching around and procuring them, I set them on the table before me. Such evidence of largess invariably renews my faith in the company, and on long runs I often get out customer bonuses and speculate on the munificence of a concern such as ours. Thus I speculated now--but not for long. I had not slept for nearly two zodal periods and was far more tired than I realized, and to complicate matters, the heavy meal which I had just consumed had had a soporific effect upon me. Almost before I knew it, I dozed off. * * * * * I believe that my first apprisal that the previously mentioned psychosensory perception had not been illusory after all was the creak of one of the cupboard doors. Unfortunately, this apprisal was on the unconscious, rather than the conscious, level, and failed to arouse me from my stupor. It took the hysterical cackling of the Uterium 5 snirk bird, a few moments later, to bring me back to true awareness, and by that time, it was too late. The tiny man who had shinned up the table leg and seized the snirk bird, the two containers of yellow trading disks, and the toy friddlefork had already regained the deck and was running toward the doorway. In the process of climbing back down, he must have bumped the toy friddlefork and accidentally activated its tonal unit, for it was bleating away insistently as he bore it away. Indeed, so insistent were its cries that one would have thought that it expected me to come after it and succor it.