Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science Fiction July 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Hoiman and the Solar Circuit By Gordon Dewey _They lifted Hoiman's scratch, thus causing him to lose much smoosh. So he grabbed his bum and hit the high orbit._ * * * * * Pay day! I scrawled my Larry Maloney across the back of the check and handed it to Nick, the bartender. "Leave me something to operate on," I told him. Nick turned it over. "Still with the _News_?" The question was rhetorical. I let it pass without swinging at it. I was mentally estimating the total of the pile of tabs Nick pulled out of the cash register, like a fighter on percentage trying to count the house. I didn't like the figure it gave me. Nick added them up, then added them again before he pulled some bills out of the money drawer and said, "Here's thirty skins. Your rent due?" "This'll cover it. I'll do my drinking here." I went over to a booth and sat down. I lit a cigarette. I smoked. And waited. Presently Sherry, tall, dark and delicious, decided I was making like a customer, and strolled over. "Would you like a menu, Mr. Maloney?" she trilled. "Larry to you," I reminded her. "No menu. Bring me a steak. Big. Thick. Rare. And a plate of french fries. No salad. Bread and butter. Coffee." She managed at last to pull her writing hand out of mine, and I had to repeat the order. Unless it could be turned into money, Sherry's memory was limited strictly to the present instant. She put in the order, then brought me a set-up. I let my eyes go over her, real careful, for maybe the thousandth time. No doubt of it--the lassie had a classy chassis. If she just wouldn't yak so damn much. [Illustration: _It looked as though Hoiman's Bum would be remembered on Mars._] "Did you see the matches last night?" She didn't wait for my answer, just went on with the yat-a-ta. "I spent the whole evening just glued to my television set. I was simply enthralled. When the Horrible Hungarian got the Flying Hackensack on--" "Standing Hackenschmidt, Sherry!" "--poor little Billie McElroy I wanted to--to scratch his eyes out." I pointed out that McElroy weighed in at two forty-one and had gone on to win the match. Sherry never heard me. "And the way the Weeping Greek kept hitting the other fellow--the announcer said he was throwing Judo cutlets." "_Cuts_, not cutlets." "But aren't Judo cutlets illegitimate?" The barest hint of a puzzled frown tugged at her flawless brows as she poured ice water into my glass.