Dane acquiesced. The young man finally managed to make it clear that all this surveillance would have to be with Dane's permission and the professor, annoyed though he was, didn't want to appear uncooperative. He couldn't resist, however, giving the young man the wrong hat when he went out and being delighted when the young man came back for the right one five minutes later. He was glad to see that something could fluster him. But that wasn't really enough. Professor Dane had been annoyed, and he needed to express himself further--by means of the joke, which was his art--in order to regain some measure of his equilibrium and self-respect. Inspiration visited him as he was climbing the stairs to his bedroom at ten-thirty that evening. He stopped short, thought a minute, then began to chuckle. He turned and went downstairs again, stepped to the phone. Professor Dane lived alone and no one else would be able to share his planned joke--but this didn't matter. He had been privately enjoying his pranks ever since, as a frail boy with an unreasonable and dominating male parent, he had discovered that they were one way in which he could compete with hardier souls, at times even surpass them. Never mind the audience, he thought. The jest was the thing! It was an hour earlier in Los Angeles and Dr. Wallace Fincher was at home. Dane disguised his voice--he did a lot of University Theater work and this kind of thing came to him easily. He listened first to Dr. Fincher's arid, humorless, "Hello. Dr. Fincher speaking." Then he heard the preliminary clicking, just as the FBI man had predicted. "Thandor," said Professor Dane, "this is Klon calling." "I beg your pardon?" said Doctor Fincher. "The jig's up," said Professor Dane. "Captain Ixl in propul-cruiser nine-nine-seven-three will never be able to break through. The Earthlings have set up a close watch--they're suspicious." "Who is this?" Doctor Fincher sounded startled. "Who the devil is this calling?" Dane could barely keep his laughter from breaking into his voice. "Thandor, we can come to no conclusion but that the Terrestrials are definitely hostile. We should have expected that from their primitive stage of development. They have orders to shoot any of our propul-cruisers they can catch. I suggest that we withdraw all ships of the Franistan class immediately from their free orbits and send them on a standard Keplerian course to the home planet for further consultation." "_Is this some kind of joke?_" Fincher sounded as if he were almost panicky. "Furthermore," said Dane, "I recommend that we withdraw all agents from Earth. We can't conceal our superior mental development and advanced technology much longer. "Someone's bound to catch on pretty soon. I was against this plan in the Galactic Council in the first place, you'll remember. Well, farewell, Thandor! I'll be seeing you soon in space!" And Professor Dane hung up before he exploded with laughter.