I only just caught the third and last Commissioner in time. We watched his tree stump sinking out of sight together. The ground began to quiver uneasily. "Let us get out of here with all haste." I followed the direction of the court with proper professional zeal. And we just made it to the safe stressed-concrete surface of the old freeway when the park melted completely into a stark framework of aluminum. Seated in the middle and peering at us through the aluminum cage were the other two Commissioners. They did not seem particularly happy. Around them in a widening belt there opened up a pit of gleaming aluminum, melting, so to speak, towards the horizon on all sides. "You realize, I suppose, Mr. Jones," said the bald Commissioner beside me, "that your client is in the process of eating up the Earth." He breathed heavily. Lood was beaming and hopping up and down at the success of his experiment. I touched him in the general area of a shoulder. He looked at me. "No," I said firmly, shaking my head. "No?" "No!" His round eyes became tearful and his little green body shook. "Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, dear." "Antiseptics?" I asked. "Oh, yus," he confirmed sadly. * * * * * Very fortunately, the fire department was still observing my client--and me, I suspected afterwards, ridiculous as that may seem. This time it took them several hours of deep spraying and drilling to confine the area. A vast saucer of aluminum remained. "Useful for signalling to stars, oh, yus?" asked Lood, hopefully. "Oh, no," I said. A threatening cough made me turn round to see the three Commissioners staring at me. "Mr. Jones...." "... you have now destroyed the Courthouse, the Public Library and five city blocks...." "... and buried them under a filthy layer of dust...." "and reduced a park into a great garbage pit...." "... we therefore refuse your claim and give you and your client six hours to get off Earth...." "... and kindly do not trouble to advise us where the Space Council moves you. We will sleep more soundly for believing that it will be many, many light-years away." And they turned and walked away, leaving me with my client--and, apparently, my traveling companion. A quiet and suppressed sobbing made me turn and look at Lood. He wept dolefully. "We have nothing," he said. "Oh, no. We have nothing to offer. Nothing that you humans want." "Well," I said, "that's the way it goes sometimes." And what, I wondered, was I going to do for a living now? "Free food," gulped Lood. "Free housing. Free gold and metals. We had all hoped so much from this. Oh, yus." There did not seem any point in telling him his people were several hundred years too late. Once upon a time he would have been hailed as a savior of a starving and poor human race, a great benefactor of mankind. Now he was just a nuisance. And I was another for letting him loose.