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AHA! I HAD THE PAPER!
The edge of the platform, when I released it, hit the able with a thump. The ring bepn to turn!
THE THING BEGAN TO PLAY A TUNE!
I went into a panic that the noise might be overheard. I stared at it. Then I grabbed one of the levers on:±c edge and yanked it.
IT PLAYED LOUDER!
The ring went faster! The paper sleeves flew off the figurines. They were care dancers! They were turning in a circle now and dancing to r music.
YE GODS, BUT THAT WAS LOUD!
Frenziedly, I yanked up and down on the levers!
ANYTHING TO STOP IT!
IT WENT FASTER!
The dancers were now whirling madly. Their glass toes, which had sounded like small bells, were now more like high-pitched gongs! I gave one more yank at the levers. It was too much. The figurines suddenly flew away, sundered from the ring. They sailed through the air. They shattered with small tinkles on the floor! The whole device let out a vibrating WHAM! A yellow spring flew out of it and hit me in the face! A voice! The butler!
"WHAT IN BLAZES ARE YOU UP TO?"
He grabbed me by the collar! He lugged me to the door. He pitched me, seat first, onto the landing target! I lit on my butt with a skid and a puff of dust. The butler's voice again. He was standing in the door, dusting off his hands. "Monte Pe
We flew at once to the Royal Institute of Ethnology. I raced to the Department of Unconquered Planets. I was in luck: a junior assistant professor there was familiar with my family name. I promised him advancement I knew very well I could never effect, if he would translate the paper. He was naive enough to accept. They have machines and dictionaries there and all sorts of contrivances for decipherment of alphabets and meanings, anything short of an outright military code. It took him only two days and I sit now in my tower study with the translation before me. It says:
TIFFANY'S
FIFTH AVENUE
New York, New York Customer: General Jerome Terrance Wister (Retired), U.S. Army Reserve Address: 5606 Central Park West Charge to; Grabbe-Manhattan Bank c/o Israel Epstein III President 1 Antique Glass Animated Dancer Music Box 18th Century, Venetian $21,000.00 Note: No Credit Card Necessary And the date is ONLY THREE WEEKS AGO!
With a viewer-phone call I just made ten minutes ago to the Reliable Spacetug Building Company, I learned that ten years after his return from Earth and one week after he had received Izzy Epstein's letter, Heller commissioned the construction of an exact duplicate of Tug One, even down to the phantom duellist in its gym. He paid for it himself-and how easy that was, since, as Duke of Manco, he received one percent of its huge a