"And miss what I've spent all this time building up? Not a chance; I'll be able to take care of myself, I think--Here comes one of the boys in a screen, to talk to me. I'll leave my Lens open, so that you can sort of look on." * * * * * Just then Bominger's screen went down and Kinnison invaded his mind; taking complete possession of it. Under his domination the fat man reported to the Boskonian, reported truly and fully. In turn, he received orders and instructions. Had any inquisitive stranger been around, or anyone on the planet using any kind of a mind-ray machine since that quadruply-accursed Lensman had held that trial? (Oh, that was what had touched them off! Kinnison was glad to know it.) No, nothing unusual at all-- And just at that critical moment, when the Lensman's mind was so busy with its task, the stranger came up to his table and stared down at him dubiously, questioningly. "Well, what's on _your_ mind?" Kinnison growled. He could not spare much of his mind just then, but it did not take much of it to play his part as a dock-walloper. "You another of these smoking house-numbers, snooping around to see if I'm trying to run a blazer on myself? By the devil and his imps, if I hadn't lost so much money here already I'd tear up this deck and go over to Croleo's and _never_ come near this crummy joint again--his rotgut can't be any worse than yours is." "Don't burn out a jet, pal." The agent, apparently reassured, adopted a conciliatory tone. "Who in hell ever said you was a pal of mine, you Radelig-gig-gigian pimp?" The supposedly three quarters drunken, certainly three quarters naked, Lensman got up, wobbled a little, and sat down again, heavily. "Don't 'pal' me, ape--I'm partic-hic-hicular about who I pal with." "That's all right, big fellow; no offense intended," soothed the other. "Come on, I'll buy you a drink." "Don't want no drink until after I've finished this game," Kinnison grumbled, and took an instant to flash a thought via Lens. "All set, boys? Thing's moving fast. If I have to take this drink--it's doped, of course--I'll bust this bird wide open. When I yell, shake the lead out of your pants!" "Of course you want a drink!" the pirate urged. "Come and get it--it's on me, you know." "And who are you to be buying me, a Tellurian gentleman, a drink?" the Lensman roared, flaring into one of the sudden, senseless rages of the character he had cultivated so assiduously. "Did I ask you for a drink? I'm educated, I am, and I've got money, I have. I'll buy myself a drink when I want one." His rage mounted higher and higher, visibly. "Did I _ever_ ask you for a drink, you--" (unprintable here for the space of two long breaths).