The Connoisseur By FRANK BANTA He said I was the biggest knuckle-head he ever saw, but I didn't trust him. Sooner or later I knew he'd insult me! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] It is infinitely more satisfactory to purchase wives when they are young. They are vastly more respectful. Twelve is a good purchasing age. Lisa was twelve when I bargained for her, and she is an illustrious argument for the system. I recall her excellent father and I facing each other across his gleaming synthol marble table that day. On the table were small metal shells of sweet liquor. And beside the shells were the sedulously gathered treasures I was formally offering for Lisa: A control knob, and a folded painting of one of our Navigator's other-ship visions. Lisa's father eagerly examined the mirror-bright, chrome surface of the control knob--which I had handed to him with a pretense of casualness--trying to still the trembling of his fingers. "The last knob on the control board!" he said in an emotion-cracked voice. "How could you have broken it off? We've all been tugging at it for years." I answered--I hope with no more than legitimate pride--"I managed to get a thin hacksaw blade between the knob and the control board. Then I sawed off the shaft." He nodded approvingly. "With knuckle-headed men like you aboard ship we will certainly all go to _Hell_." I bowed, but I did not let his flattery relax my caution. After all, we were bargaining for his prettiest daughter. What flattering words bear weight in the midst of a sale? He, of course, referred to the ringing sincerity of our Navigator's dying words: "If you knuckle-heads all want to go to _Hell_, just keep dismantling the ship!" Swinging adroitly to my other item of barter, I mused aloud, "Our Navigator! What a strange, frantic creature he was. Full of the wild, lovely visions which effervesced from his books of fantasy. Imploring us not only to read the books but to believe them--and, failing that, drawing immortal paintings of the fantasies for us to see." * * * * * Therewith I opened the folded painting and handed it reverently to him. It showed a large globular ship with people living on the _outside_ of it. The title of the painting was _Planet_. Privately I had always thought the thing was wholly unnatural--a curious off-beat of the master's imagination. I was quite willing, despite its great beauty and its origin, to exchange it for something which to me was far more attractive at the moment. Namely a woman.