And Ben Graffis breathed a great breath and looked them not in the eye and said to them, Were it not a better thing for Poopy Panda to coax and urge no more, but to command as he were a god?
And the animators and directors and cameramen and writers were sore amazed and they said one to the other, This is the bleeding end, and the bankers which sit in New York have flipped their wigs. And one which was an old animator said to Ben Graffis, trembling, O chief, never would I have stolen for thee Poopy Panda from the Win-nie the Pooh illustrations back in twenty-nine had I known this was in the cards, and Ben Graffis fired him.
Whereupon another which was a director said to Ben Graffis, O chief, the thing can be done with a two-week buildup, and Ben Graffis put his hands over his face and said, Let it be so.
And it came to pass that on the Friday after the two-week buildup, in the closing quarter-hour of the Poopy Panda Pals, there was a spe-cial film combining live and animated action as they were one.
And in the special film did Poopy Panda appear enhaloed, and the talented kid performers did do him worship, and Otto Clodd did trip over his feet whilst kneeling, and Jackie Whipple did urge in manly and sincere wise that all the Poopy Panda Pals out there in television-land do likewise, and the enhaloed Poopy Panda did say in his lova-ble growly voice, Poop-poop-poopy.
And adoration ascended from thirty-seven million souls.
And it came to pass that Ben Graffis went into his office with his animators and cameramen and directors and writers after the show and said to them, It was definitely a TV first, and he did go to the bar.
Whereupon one which was a director looked at Who sate behind the desk that was the desk of Ben Graffis and he said to Ben Graffis, O chief, it is a great gag but how did the special effects boys manage the halo?
And Ben Graffis was sore amazed at Who sate behind his desk and he and they all did crowd about and make as if to poke Him, whereupon He in His lovable growly voice did say, Poop-poop-poopy, and they were not.
And certain unclean ones which had gone before turned unbeliev-ing from their monitors and said, Holy Gee, this is awful. And one which was an operator of marionettes turned to his manager and said, Pal, if Graffis gets this off the ground we're dead. Whereat a great and far-off voice was heard, saying, Poop-poop-poopy, and it was even so; and the days of Poopy Panda were long in the land.
Filtered for error,
Jan. 18th 36 P.P.
Synod on Filtration & Infiltration
O. Clodd, P.P.P.
J. Whipple, P.P.P.
Make Mine Mars
'X is for the ecstasy she ga-a-ave me; E is for her eyes—one, two, and three-ee; T is for the teeth with which she'd sha-a-ave me; S is for her scales of i-vo-ree-ee-ee …'
Somebody was singing, and my throbbing head objected. I teemed to have a mouthful of sawdust
T is for her tentacles ah-round me;
J is for her jowls—were none soo-oo fair;
H is for the happy day she found me; 'Fe is for the iron in her hair..,'
I ran my tongue around inside my mouth. It was full of sawdust—
spruce and cedar, rocketed in from Earth.
'Put them all to-gether, they spell Xetstjhfe …'
My eyes snapped open, and I sat up, cracking my head on the underside of the table beneath which I was lying. I lay down waited for the pinwheels to stop spinning. I tried to it out. Spruce and cedar . .
.Honest Blogri's Olde Earthe Saloon …eleven stingers with a Sirian named Wenjtkpli…
'A worrud that means the wur-r-l-l-d too-oo mee-ee-ee!'
Through the fading pinwheels I saw a long and horrid face, a Sirian face, peering at me with kindly interest under the table. It was Wenjtkpli.
'Good morning, little Earth chum,' he said. 'You feel not so tired now?'
'Morning?' I yelled, sitting up again and cracking my head again and lying down again to wait for the pinwheels to fade again.
'You sleep,' I heard him say, 'fourteen hours—so happy, so peaceful!'
'I gotta get out of here,' I mumbled, scrambling about on the imported sawdust for my hat. I found I was wearing it, and climbed out, stood up, and leaned against the table, swaying and spitting out the last of the spruce and cedar.
'You like another stinger?' asked Wenjtkpli brightly. I retched feebly.
'Fourteen hours,' I mumbled. 'That makes it 0900 Mars now, or exactly ten hours past the time I was supposed to report for the nightside at the bureau.'
'But last night you talk different,' the Sirian told me in surprise. 'You say many times how bureau chief McGillicuddy can take lousy job and jam—'
'That was last night,' I moaned. 'This is this morning.'
'Relax, little Earth chum. I sing again song you taught me: X is for the ecstasy she ga-a-ave me; E is for—'
My throbbing head still objected. I flapped good-by at him and set a course for the door of Blogri's joint. The quaint period mottoes:
'QUAFFE YE NUT-BROWN AYLE' 'DROPPE DEAD TWYCE' and so on—
didn't look so quaint by the cold light of the Martian dawn.
An unpleasant little character, Venusian or something, I'd seen around the place oozed up to me. 'Head hurt plenty,
“Huh?' he simpered.
'This is no time for sympathy,' I said. 'Now one side or a flipper off—I gotta go to work.'
'No sympathy,' he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. He fumbled oddly in his belt, then showed me a little white capsule. 'Clear your head, huh? Work like lightning, you bet!'
I was interested. 'How much?'
'For you, friend, nothing. Because I hate seeing fellows suffer with big head.'
'Beat it,' I told him, and shoved past through the door.
That pitch of his with a free sample meant he was pushing J-K-B. I was in enough trouble without adding an unbreakable addiction to the stuff. If I'd taken his free sample, I would have been back to see him in 12 hours, sweating blood for more. And that time he would have named his own price.
I fell into an eastbound chair and fumbled a quarter into the slot The thin, cold air of the pressure dome was clearing my head already. I was sorry for all the times I’d cussed a skinflint dome administration for not supplying a richer air mix or heating the outdoors more lavishly. I felt food enough to shave, and luckily had my razor in my wallet. By the time the chair was gliding past the building, where Interstellar News had a floor, I had the whiskers off my jaw and most of the sawdust out of my hair.
The floater took me up to our floor while I tried not to think of what McGillicuddy would have to say.
The newsroom was full of noise as usual. McGillicuddy vu in the copydesk slot chewing his way through a pile of dpatches due to be filed on the pressure dome split for A.M. newscasts in four minutes by the big wall clock. He fed his copy, without looking, to an operator battering the keys of fte old-fashioned radioteletype that was good enough to serve for local clients.
'Two minutes short!' he yelled at one of the men on the 'Gimme a brightener! Gimme a god-damned brightener!' The rim man raced to the receiving ethertypes from rCammadion, Betelgeuse, and the other Interstellar bureaus. He yanked an item from one of the clicking machines and •caJed it at McGillicuddy, who slashed at it with his pencil and passed it to the operator. The tape the operator was cooing started through the transmitter-distributor, and on all local clients'
radioteletypes appeared:
