The Centaurian MacWhirtle was n smaller and older edition of Juggins. Although his manner still retained most of the clockwork stiffness of the uncontaminated Bozo, it was evident he was under a strain of some kind.
"Sit down!" he barked.
Dowling sat.
MacWhirtle leaned forward. "I understand you're —you and that Chinaman Hsi are—are willing to let me have some common stock in the Atlantic City Improvement Company below the price it'll be offered the public at."
"Yep." Dowling grinned. "Reminds me, can my friend Osborn have his secretarial job back?"
"Why? What do you know about Osborn?"
"He was fired for using a preposition to end a sentence with. If we're offering the stock to the public at—"
The Bozo purpled. "I'll do what I—why you insolent—" The sentence died in sputters, while Dowling mentally kicked himself for breaking his long-standing rule never to joke with a Bozo.
MacWhirtle calmed himself enough to ask for more details about the stock. Dowling explained.
MacWhirtle looked intently at his finger-nails. He said, barely audibly: "I could use force, but she'd hate me—" He realized that Dowling was listening to him, and yelled: "Get out! I won't have men spying on my private—"
Dowling, annoyed but not discouraged, got up to leave. MacWhirtle shouted: "Sit down, you silly ass! I didn't mean it seriously. I admit I've got to have money. You said ..."
Dowling walked from the hotel where he had met MacWhirtle to the Perm Station. It was after four, and the only time of day or night when New York's streets are almost deserted. MacWhirtle had shown a bargaining ability incongruous with the financial innocence expected of a true Bozo.
On West 35th he approached a group of men. He recognized the uniform of the watchdogs. One of the national police saw him, whipped out a pistol, and fired. Dowling dived down a set of basement steps. He yelled up: "What the hell's the matter with you?"
There were mutterings in the dark. A deep voice addressed the world at large: "The first open window gets a bullet through it. Go back to bed, all of you." Then the owner of the voice appeared, rocking a bulbous body along on huge flat feet.
The watchdog flashed a light at Dowling's face, and said: "Glory be, if it isn't Mr. Dowling, the Philadelphia mediator! Come out, Mr. Dowling. I'm sorry one of the boys got nervous and took a shot at you. You see—some of them Bozos was look sick, and we was helping them. Naturally we didn't want nobody to see them in that condition."
"You'd have been a hell of a lot sorrier if he'd hit me," grumbled Dowling. He followed the watchdog down to the knot. The three Bozos were sick, all right. The reek of regurgitated alcohol implied the nature of their sickness.
One of the other watchdogs was muttering: "So these' are the supermen, who never have any fun, eh? Well, well. Well, well."
Weathered granite disintegrates, but it takes time. Dowling, as he helped Arthur Hsi to spin their web, reflected that he was getting a paunch. People might refer to him as a "rising young man" still, but without unduly stressing the "young." His daughter was in high-school. He was not altogether pleased to observe that she was turning into a beauty. He'd have to keep her out of sight of the Bozos with whom he was in constant contact.
Hsi complained: "If we cut a few more Bozos in on this space-port deal, Sino-American might just as well sell out its American holdings and go back to China."
Dowling grinned. "We've got 'cm where we want 'em, haven't we?"
"Oh, yes. They follow our—suggestions ---like little lambs. But—"
Dowling's wrist-phone rang. Juggins' voice said hoarsely: "Dowling! A terrible thing has happened! MacWhirtle has just shot Solovyov!"
"Killed him?"
"Yes!"
Dowling whistled. Solovyov was Administrator for all of North America. Juggins continued: "It was a quarrel over—you remember that girl, that Miss Helen Kistler, whom you introduced to MacWhirtle last year? It was a quarrel over her!"
"What'll happen?"
"I don't know, but Australia will come down on us.
They'll send investigators. God knows what they won't do."
"Well," soothed Dowling, "We'll just have to stick together. Pass the word along to the others."
Australia came down on them all right. In a week the Middle Atlantic States swarmed with Bozo investigators, stiff, grim, and arrogant. The plain citizens, whose hatred for their masters had become a bit dulled with familiarity, awoke to find their newspapers plastered with drastic new decrees—to "tighten up the incredibly lax moral standards prevailing in North America." "Absolute prohibition of intoxicating liquors." "No married women shall work for pay." "No smoking in public places, the same to include public thoroughfares, hotels, restaurants ..."
Baldwin Dowling entered Juggins' office—the Philadelphia Administrator now had a huge one with rugs in which one practically sank ankle-deep. Juggins and five other local Bozos were facing one of the investigators, a small waspish man.
"Get over there with the others," snarled the little man, evidently mistaking Dowling for another Centaurian. The investigator continued his tirade: "And here I find you fallen into the slime of corruption and depravity! Tea! Coffee! Tobacco! Liquor! Women! Bribery! Ccntaurians, eh? Rotten, filthy, weaklings! You're coming with me now. We're taking a special plane to Australia, where you shall stand trial for enough corruption and immorality to hang a continent. Don't worry about packing; you won't need anything but a coffin. Come on!"
He strode to the door and yanked it open. The six Bozos, looking dazed, started to file out. The frightful discipline of their childhood still told.
Dowling caught Juggins' eye. Juggins returned his look dully. Dowling muttered: "Going to let him get away with it?"
"What do you mean?"
"You're bigger'n he is."
Light slowly dawned. Juggins faced, his small tormentor. The other Bozos stopped and faced him too.
"Well?" barked the little man. It did not seem to have occurred to him for an instant that his order might be disobeyed.
The six moved toward him. He looked puzzled, then incredulous, then furious, then alarmed. He reached for his pocket. The Bozos rolled over him in a wave. A gun went off, once. The Bozos untangled themselves. The investigator lay with half his face shot off.
"What now?" panted Juggins. "What'll they do when they hear of this? Where can we go? What's that?"
"That" was the noise of an angry mob, flowing along the street outside and smashing things for no reason other than that it was angry.
The Bozos raced downstairs, Dowling after them.
A dozen watchdogs lounged around the entrance of the building. The mob kept clear of them, though none of them had a weapon out.
"Why don't you shoot?" yelled one of the Bozos to the commander of the police.
The watchdog yawned ostentatiously. "Because, Jack, we don't like not being able to smoke in public no more'n they do." And he turned his back on the Centaurian.
That was all the encouragement the mob needed. But by the time they reached the portals, the six Bozos were not there. They had departed for the rear exit with an audible swish.
Baldwin Dowling, prudently keeping out of the mob's way, dialled his wrist-phone. "Hey, Arthur! Juggins and his friends killed the investigator, and skipped! It looks like maybe they've cracked. I'll try to raise New York, and see if I can start a rumpus there. They're a pushover! See if you can find out what's doing in China! I've got to organize an interim government for Philly. Boy, oh boy!"
A telephone call to New York informed Dowling that a mob had formed there—several mobs, in fact—and that the Centaurians had fled or been lynched. Their leader, the new New York Administrator, had been dead drunk, and had failed to give orders at the critical time ...