A tall elderly man held out his hand. He had a small black waxed mustache and Van Dyke. He was smoking a venusian cigarette in a yellow composition holder. He said, "I'm Doctor Boynton." He had a rich cultivated voice, and a nose like a hawk. "We are members of the Interstellar Cosmography Society. We've been commissioned to make a cursory examination of this asteroid. You had a nasty crack up, Mr. Fawkes. But you are in luck, sir. We were on the point of returning when we sighted the wreck." "I say," said the man who had run out of the cruiser. He was a prim, energetic young man. Jonathan noted that he carried the ray gun gingerly, respectfully. "We're a week overdue now," he said. "If you have any personal belongings that you'd like to take with you, you'd best be getting them aboard." * * * * * Jonathan's face broke into a grin. He said, "Do any of you know how to grow tobacco?" They glanced at each other in perplexity. "I like it here," continued Jonathan. "I'm not going back." "What?" cried the three explorers in one breath. "I'm going to stay," he repeated. "I only came back here after the cigarettes." "But it will be three years before the asteroid's orbit brings it back in the space lanes," said Doctor Boynton. "You don't possibly expect to be picked up before then!" Jonathan shook his head, began to load himself with tools, tobacco seed, and cigarettes. "Odd." Doctor Boynton shook his head, turned to the others. "Though if I remember correctly, there was quite an epidemic of hermits during the medieval period. It was an esthetic movement. They fled to the wilderness to escape the temptation of _women_." Jonathan laughed outright. "You are sure you won't return, young man?" He shook his head. They argued, they cajoled, but Jonathan was adamant. He said, "You might report my accident to Universal. Tell them to stop one of their Jupiter-bound freighters here when the asteroid swings back in the space ways. I'll have a load for them." Inside the ship, Doctor Boynton moved over to a round transparent port hole. "What a strange fellow," he murmured. He was just in time to see the castaway, loaded like a pack mule, disappear in the direction from which he had come. Robinson Crusoe was going back to his man (?) Friday--all twenty-seven of them. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Happy Castaway, by Emmett McDowell