could never have got through that speech. I could hear his voice in my ears: “Sell ’em, Mitch; you can sell them if you’ll keep in mind that they want to buy.” And I sold the assembled legislators precisely what they wanted to own. I touched briefly on American enterprise and the home; I offered them a world to loot and a whole plunderable universe beyond it, once Fowler Schocken’s brave pioneers had opened the way for it; I gave them a picture of assembly-line planets owned and operated by our very selves, the enterprising American businessmen who had made civilization great. They loved it. The applause was fantastic. As the first waves died down, there were a dozen standing figures in the hall, clapping their hands and begging the chair for recognition. I hardly noticed; astonishingly, Kathy was gone from the press-box. The Speaker selected white-haired old Colbee, lean and dignified with his four decades of service. “The chair recognizes the gentleman from Yummy-Cola.” “Thank you very much, Mr. Speakuh.” Colbee’s face wore a courtly smile; but his eyes seemed to me the eyes of a snake. Yummy-Cola was nominally one of the few big independents; but I remembered that Fowler had commented once on their captive agency’s surprising closeness to Taunton. “If I may ventuah to speak for the Upper Chamber, I should like to thank ouah distinguished guest for his very well-chosen remarks heah. I am certain that we all have enjoyed listening to a man of his calibeh and standing.” Go back to the Berlitz school, you Westchester phony, I thought bitterly. I could feel the wienie coming as Colbee rumbled on. “With the permission of the chair, I should like to ask ouah guest a number of questions involving the legislation we have been asked to consider heah today.” Consider indeed, you bastard, I thought. By now even the galleries had caught on to what was happening. I hardly needed to hear the rest: “It may have escaped youah attention, but we are fortunate in having with us another guest. I refer of course to Mr. Taunton.” He waved gracefully to the visitor’s gallery, where B. J.’s red face appeared between two solid figures that I should have recognized at the first moment as his bodyguards. “In a brief discussion before ouah meeting heah, Mr. Taunton was good enough to give me some information which I would like Mr. Co’tenay to comment upon. First-” the snake eyes were steel now, “I would ask Mr. Co’tenay if the name of George Groby, wanted for Contract Breach and Femi-
nineteen cide, is familiar to him. Second, I would like to ask if Mr. Co’tenay is Mr. Groby. Third, I would like to ask Mr. Co’tenay if there is any truth to the repo’t, given me in confidence by someone in whom Mr. Taunton assures me I can repose absolute trust, that Mr. Co’tenay is a membeh in good standing of the World Conservation Association, known to most of us who are loyal Amurricans as-” Even Colbee himself could not have heard the last words of his sentence. The uproar was like a physical blast.
Seen in retrospect, everything that happened in the next wild quarter of an hour blurs and disappears like the shapes in a spinning kaleidoscope. But I remember tableaux, frozen moments of time that seem almost to have no relation to each other: The waves of contempt and hatred that flowed around me, the contorted face of the President below me, screaming something unheard to the sound engineer in his cubicle, the wrathful eyes of the Speaker as he reached out for me. Then the wild motion halted as the President’s voice roared through the chamber at maximum amplification: “I declare this meeting adjourned!”-and the stunned expressions of the legislators at his unbelievable temerity. There was greatness in that little man. Before anyone could move or think he clapped his hands-the magnified report was like atomic fission-and a smartly uniformed squad moved in on us. “Take him away,” the President declaimed, with a magnificent gesture, and at double-time the squad surrounded me and hustled me off the podium. The President convoyed us as far as the door while the assembly gathered its wits. His face was white with fear, but he whispered: “I can’t make it stick, but it’ll take them all afternoon to get a ruling from the C of C. God bless you, Mr. Courtenay.” And he turned back to face them. I do not think Caligula’s Christians walked more courageously into the arena. The guards were the President’s own, honor men from Brink’s leadership academy. The lieutenant said never a word to me, but I could read the controlled disgust on his face as he read the slip of