"Then I don't see why you should be ill. I can explain my headache away by attributing it to eyestrain. Since Billyboy came here, and censored the movies to the bone, the darned things flicker like anything. But eyestrain doesn't create an autointoxication. So, my fine fellow, what have you been drinking?" "Nothing that I haven't been drinking since I first took to my second bottlehood some years ago." "You wouldn't be suffering from a hangover from that hangover you had a couple of weeks ago?" "Nope. I swore off. Never again will I try to drink a whole quart of Two Moons in one evening. It got me." "It had you for a couple of days," laughed Arden. "All to itself." Don Channing said nothing. He recalled, all too vividly, the rolling of the tummy that ensued after that session with the only fighter that hadn't yet been beaten: Old John Barleycorn. "How are you coming on with Burbank?" asked Arden. "I haven't heard a rave for--well, ever since Monday morning's conference. Three days without a nasty dig at Our Boss. That's a record." "Give the devil his due. He's been more than busy placating irate citizens. That last debacle with the beam control gave him a real Moscow winter. His reforms came to a stop whilst he entrenched. But he's been doing an excellent job of squirming out from under. Of course, it has been helped by the fact that even though the service was rotten for a few hours, the customers couldn't rush out to some other agency to get communications with the other planets." "Sort of: 'Take us, as lousy as we are?'" "That's it." * * * * * Channing opened the door to his apartment and Arden went in. Channing followed, and then stopped cold. "Great Jeepers!" he said in an awed tone. "If I didn't know--" "Why, Don! What's so startling?" "Have you noticed?" he asked. "It smells like the inside of a chicken coop in here!" Arden sniffed. "It does sort of remind me of something that died and couldn't get out of its skin." Arden smiled. "I'll hold my breath. Any sacrifice for a drink." "That isn't the point. This is purified air. It should be as sweet as a baby's breath." "Some baby," whistled Arden. "What's baby been drinking?" "It wasn't cow-juice. What I've been trying to put over is that the air doesn't seem to have been changed in here for nine weeks." Channing went to the ventilator and lit a match. The flame bent over, flickered, and went out. "Air intake is O.K.," he said. "Maybe it is I. Bring on that bottle, Channing; don't keep the lady waiting." He yawned again, deeply and jaw-stretchingly. Arden yawned, too, and the thought of both of them stretching their jaws to the breaking-off point made both of them laugh foolishly. "Arden, I'm going to break one bottle of beer with you, after which I'm going to take you home, kiss you good night, and toss you into your own apartment. Then I'm coming back here and I'm going to hit the hay!"