_"Lie down?" I repeated, puzzled. I have an excellent command of Terran, but every now and then an idiom will throw me. "I tell the truth, sir, and when I am required by force of circumstances to lie, I lie up."_ _"No," he said, "not that kind of lying. You know, the kind you do at night when you go to sleep."_ _"Oh, I get you," I said idiomatically. Without further ado, I flung off my ulster and flew up to a thingummy hanging from the ceiling--chandelier, I believe, is the native term--flipped upside down, and hung from it by my toes. Wasn't the Presidential Perch, by any means, but it wasn't bad at all. "What do I do next?" I inquired affably._ _"My dear fellow," the chap said, whipping out a notebook from the recesses of his costume, "how long have you had this delusion that you are a bird--or is it a bat?"_ _"Sir," I said as haughtily as my position permitted, "I am neither a bird nor a bat. I am a Fizbian. Surely you have heard of Fizbians?"_ _"Yes, yes, of course. They come from another country or planet or something. Frankly, politics is a bit outside my sphere. All I'm interested in is people--and Fizbians are people, aren't they?"_ _"Yes, certainly. If anything, it's you who.... Yes, they are people."_ _"Well, tell me then, Mr. Liznig, when was it you first started thinking you were a bat or a bird?"_ _I tried to control myself. "I am neither a bird nor a bat! I am a Fizbian! I have wings! See?" I fluttered them._ _He peered at me. "I wish I could," he said regretfully. "Without my glasses, though, I'm as blind as a bat--or a bird."_ _Well, the long and the short of it is that the natives are planning to certify me as insane and incarcerate me, pending the doctor's decision as to whether my delusion is that I am a bird or a bat. They are using my privacy waiver as commitment papers._ _Save me, Senbot Drosmig, for I feel that if I have to wait for the doctor's glasses to be delivered, I shall indeed go mad._ _Distractedly yours,_ _Tgos Liznig_ "I'll handle this myself," Stet said crisply. "I'll tell the consul to advise the Terran State Department that this man should be deported as an undesirable alien. That'll solve the problem neatly. We can't have this contaminating the pure stream of Terrestrial literature with--" "But aren't you going to explain to them that he's perfectly sane?" Tarb gasped. "No need to bother. He'll be grateful enough to get off the planet. Besides, how do I know he is perfectly sane?" "Stet Zarnon, you're perfectly horrid!"