(Since when had freedom stooped to tap the phones of prostitutes? What excellence of police was this, in a world community where hardly an honest man or woman remained, where half a billion people slowly starved, where thieves and cheats were commoner than spots of oil or horse-dung in streets? And how the cops enwhored Lady Liberty when they invaded the life of that busy lass! Truly dirty deeds bought their own big privacies: corporations burned their books and politicians lost their records. Mere tarts, however, had their phones tapped and their words recorded. What a splendid free nation I had come to live in! With what marvels of detective science!) Well--not for long. My weary effort would soon peter out. Maybe then I could go and watch Kipling splash on his big-league canvas with brushes of comet's hair. I pondered for a while over those hairy comets. Well. All of us had short arms. We all reached too far. I dialed Dave. Veto said he was asleep and would call me when he woke. When will Monday come? Never? Why be impatient? Isn't it better to not-know? Not for Joe! No, no, no. Finally, I got my chassis, frame, machine, chemical factory, over to the bridge table and, though my pilot was still missing, I began to fly better on my iron mike. (Isn't it great to be up-to-date?) At noon, the phone screamed. "Hi, boy!" "Hey. Thanks." (I should have used those roses in my _crise_. They were there. I wasn't.) Dave took a fraction of a second to decide not to say what he had been about to say. Perhaps that he was afraid I'd think him foolish. I looked at the flowers and the pilot was sitting amongst them. "Any news of our Paul?" he asked. "My agent lost the trail around midnight." "I've got bulletins up to three A.M.--last time he called. He'd been to Madam Blaine's--and she'd given him the runaround." "Marcia's there," I said. "I know. I called after that and Hattie put her on. Rough gal." "Yeah." "In a bad mood. Wanted me to come up." "I went there and caught her act, personally." Dave said, "I honest-to-God didn't think there was any need of putting a tail on the lad. Maybe I should have. Now what?" "Now we wait till he gets hungry, sleepy, or runs out of dough." "I'll keep you posted from my end. I'll send Charlie over to Paul's apartment again. Do a couple of other things. And stop by later." "If he checks with me, I'll let you know." "Good. I've got a meeting with my moguls right after lunch. They are trying to dream up a cycle. Yesterday--they ran through the Frankenstein possibilities and then got in your territory--animal horror. You should have been there! You would have yorked parade floats." "You might suggest phallic worship. Remember? They could put it in the past. You know, Mu, Atlantis, Lemuria, Ancient Rome. I doubt if the censors would gather what it was. Think it was educational. How about a documentary of Pompeii?"