It began the next day with people coming to visit him. He knew the approach. They merely wanted to be helpful to their illustrious visitor from the past and would he help fill them in about his era, which unfortunately was somewhat obscure historically, and what did he think could be done about the Problem? He told them he was too old to be roped any more, and they wouldn't get any information out of him until he got a letter of intent from at least the Polar President, and a session of the Polar Congress empowered to make him dictator. He got the letter and the session. He presented his program, was asked whether his conscience didn't revolt at its callousness, explained succinctly that a deal was a deal and anybody who wasn't smart enough to protect himself didn't deserve protection--"Caveat emptor," he threw in for scholarship, and had to translate it to "Let the buyer beware." He didn't, he stated, give a damn about either the morons or their intelligent slaves; he'd told them his price and that was all he was interested in. Would they meet it or wouldn't they? The Polar President offered to resign in his favor, with certain temporary emergency powers that the Polar Congress would vote him if he thought them necessary. Barlow demanded the title of World Dictator, complete control of world finances, salary to be decided by himself, and the publicity campaign and historical writeup to begin at once. "As for the emergency powers," he added, "they are neither to be temporary nor limited." Somebody wanted the floor to discuss the matter, with the declared hope that perhaps Barlow would modify his demands. "You've got the proposition," Barlow said. "I'm not knocking off even ten per cent." "But what if the Congress refuses, sir?" the President asked. "Then you can stay up here at the Pole and try to work it out yourselves. I'll get what I want from the morons. A shrewd operator like me doesn't have to compromise; I haven't got a single competitor in this whole cockeyed moronic era." Congress waived debate and voted by show of hands. Barlow won unanimously. "You don't know how close you came to losing me," he said in his first official address to the joint Houses. "I'm not the boy to haggle; either I get what I ask or I go elsewhere. The first thing I want is to see designs for a new palace for me--nothing _un_ostentatious, either--and your best painters and sculptors to start working on my portraits and statues. Meanwhile, I'll get my staff together." He dismissed the Polar President and the Polar Congress, telling them that he'd let them know when the next meeting would be. A week later, the program started with North America the first target.