But give him credit. He could handle business angles to perfection. In spite of his tangle over the beam control, he had rebounded excellently and had ironed out all of the complaints that had poured in. Ironed it out to the satisfaction of the injured party as well as the Interplanetary Communications Commission, who were interested in anything that cost money. He dismissed the conference and went to thinking. And he assumed the same pose that infuriated him in other men under him; hands behind head, feet upon desk. * * * * * The moving picture theater was dark. The hero reached longing arms to the heroine, and there was a sort of magnetic attraction. They approached one another. But the spark misfired. It was blacked out with a nice slice of utter blackness that came from the screen and spread its lightlessness all over the theater. In the ensuing darkness, there were several osculations that were more personal and more satisfying than the censored clinch. The lights flashed on and several male heads moved back hastily. Female lips smiled happily. Some of them parted in speech. One of them said: "Why, Mr. Channing!" "Shut up, Arden," snapped the man. "People will think that I've been kissing you." "If someone else was taking advantage of the situation," she said, "you got gypped. I thought I was kissing you and I cooked with gas!" "Did you ever try that before?" asked Channing interestedly. "Why?" she asked. "I liked it. I merely wondered, if you'd worked it on other men, what there was about you that kept you single." "They all died after the first application," she said. "They couldn't take it." "Let me outta here! I get the implication. I am the first bird that hasn't died, hey?" He yawned luxuriously. "Company or the hour?" asked Arden. "Can't be either," he said. "Come on, let's break a bottle of beer open. I'm dry!" "I've got a slight headache," she told him. "From what, I can't imagine." "I haven't a headache, but I'm sort of logy." "What have you been doing?" asked Arden. "Haven't seen you for a couple of days." "Nothing worth mentioning. Had an idea a couple of days ago and went to work on it." "Haven't been working overtime or missing breakfast?" "Nope." "Then I don't see why you should be ill. I can explain my headache away by attributing it to eyestrain. Since Billyboy came here, and censored the movies to the bone, the darned things flicker like anything. But eyestrain doesn't create an autointoxication. So, my fine fellow, what have you been drinking?" "Nothing that I haven't been drinking since I first took to my second bottlehood some years ago." "You wouldn't be suffering from a hangover from that hangover you had a couple of weeks ago?" "Nope. I swore off. Never again will I try to drink a whole quart of Two Moons in one evening. It got me." "It had you for a couple of days," laughed Arden. "All to itself."