As for Grabit, he sits today at his dusty little desk, fingering his penny Ledger and absentmindedly feeling around in his whiskers betimes for a wild hair or two. Listlessly he turns the ledger pages and counts the tombstones, and in gloomy speculation asks himself why all those old Customers went over to the Competish, Why his Salesmen were slipshod And his goods built on luck Why his best men deserted And the worst stuck—and struck. An echo answers “Why.” The Office Cat, scrawny and sarcastic, jumps on the window ledge. She gives Grabit one withering look, puts her thumb-equivalent to her nose, and disappears into the night. Grabit is alone. Isn’t it harrowing though? HOT SKETCH NO. 18 THE PICAYUNE PLANET ONCE there was a ball-shaped mass of matter whirling through space called “The Earth.” Compared to other masses of matter chasing through the charted Universe, it was about as big and important as a louse on the leg of an elephant. The Earth was covered with millions of wiggling, jiggling, jumping little gnat-like creatures called “Men.” These “Men” told one another that they were the highest form of created life. And believed it. And thought they had a sense of humor. They made themselves a god in their own image and likeness and kept altering and remodeling him from epoch to epoch, to suit their own selfish purposes. Their aim was to standardize him so that everybody, whether white or black or yellow or drab, could utilize him profitably in his business. For thousands of years these little shrimpy Two Spots spent their time building up and tearing down. As soon as one set of them would start anything that promised to pull them out of the inch-browed class and enable them to stand on their hind legs and look upward, another set would come along and push them back on all fours again. All of them were for Progress but none of them knew what Progress meant. They all stood for Morality, but as they had one Code of Morals for one set and another Code for another set and kept changing and shuffling these Codes all the time none of them knew at any stage of the game whether he was moral or immoral. He had to read the Season’s Revised Rules before he could tell. In time certain foxy gazunks arose among them called “rulers.” These rulers wore a lot of bric-a-brac on their chests and catcher’s masks on top of their heads called “crowns,” and collected millions of Low Brows around them and told the L. B.’s that God had selected them to rule because they were wiser than anybody else. The poor kanoops opened their heavy jaws and bulged out their eyes in glassy awe, and believed it. Each Ruler had his bright, beaming eye on the other’s loafing-stool called the “throne,” and manoeuvred merrily to pinch it. But he was not always sure that his knee-bending subjects would follow him and so he devised a dandy little scheme.