He said, "I've always suspected, however, that the real reason for Johnny's assassination struck Prunella, so to speak, like a bolt from the blue when she walked under his nest in the tower. At any rate, I saw her shoving her shirt into the disposer chute. Johnny had one bad habit and all of us knew better than to get within his range, but Prunella, being new with us, just didn't understand that bird." He stopped, twirling his empty glass suggestively, with painful memories obviously clouding his eyes while he stared into the hypnotically flickering fire. "Empty," he said mournfully, "just as my heart was." He bowed his head to Johnny's memory as I hastily left him alone with his grief. I quickly returned from the kitchen, bringing a fresh supply of the medicinal spirits that Grandfather had advised for moments of stress and, over Lee's feeble protests, forced a generous dosage into his glass. He regarded it with a wan, pathetic smile, then, at my urging, choked back his sorrow and nearly drained the goblet in a manful gulp. Grandfather was right. The sorrow left Lee's eye and from somewhere he found new courage to go on. "The death of the bird seemed to crystalize the rebellion. That night, the entire personnel of the station unanimously elected themselves as joint chairmen of the Ways and Means Committee of the Xenon Anti-Prunella and After-sundown Elbow-bending League and immediately called a special meeting. The emergency session convened around a keg of my illegal brandy which, in some miraculous manner, had escaped Prunella's searching hatchet. Not wishing to offend the unknown gods who had thus smiled upon us, we took small token sips as we meditated." Lee demonstrated with the glass in his hand. "How to throw off the yoke of the oppressor who had come among us? How to ease the bite of her lash on our quivering backs? How to restore our tiny, inoffensive still whose musical, tinkling drip we loved so well? The suggestions put before the committee that night were many and varied and wonderful." Lee tried to light a cigarette and nearly broiled the end of his nose with the flame. "Lopez, head of our camera team, wanted to pickle her in a barrel of brandy and send her back to Venus Relay Station aboard the next courier rocket. Sounded like a good idea, too, until Olsen, one of the biologists, objected on the grounds that those bums on Venus never did anything for us, so why should they get all that good brandy? The motion was tabled as impractical when we saw the pit into which Lopez and his wild ideas had nearly led us. A whole barrel of brandy! The man must have been desperate to call for such extreme measures." * * * * *