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Then he straightened up and boomed out, "What&039;ll it be, friends? The drinks are on the house!" And they were, too - several quick, happy rounds of the white, powdered sugar and gin On Phil&039;s advice Moe put it behind the bar so Lucky could consuuffaw and handed two guns, butt-first, to Brimstine

"Reckon I better checkhis hillbilly accent to cowboy lingo Moe accepted the, and put theave up his weapons, with the added injunction that Moe was to sell theave out

Juno, with a s whiskey in front of her, leaned across Phil and assured Mary, "From now on, I&039;ll believe every word nuts tell me, especially you and Sash"

"And I&039;ll always tell you e&039;re lying," Mary assured her back, ratherher

As customers drifted into the bar by ones and twos, Brimstine called them to join the party As soon as they did, they beca as anyone else After a ti but pour, shake and serve Shortly he quit the shaking part

Mary broke away froed and kissed it, saying, "You dear, dearto shut his eyes and quake ecstatically

Then Lucky came out from under the bar and jumped on it and walked up and down in a very lordly way but with a definite lurch After a bit he jumped down in front of the bar and the crowd parted for hinity toward an exit

Moe heaved hi several drinks, and called out, "Co at Double AP is free!"

And so a bacchanalian procession began to weave through All Pleasures A as Bacchus, Lucky as a leopard, and, thought Phil, if the others only knew about Dion

There were nyirl to leave her concession after everybody that wanted had a turn and Moe had explained how the gaimmicked and all the prizes had been distributed or at least offered

Once or twice concession owners bleated indignantly at Moe&039;s rallying cry, "It&039;s all free, folks!" But their objections always dissolved at Lucky&039;s arrival

The procession grew steadily larger Occasionally groups would leave it to go on free rides, but there weren&039;t as ht have been expected and they always seeodlike capacity He skipped like a la He had a word and a joke for everyone and could always think of a new stunt to cap his last Perhaps he reached his high point when he loosed a tiger and two black panthers fro no fear, they wove in and out of the procession happily, accepting caresses fro thetheir necks to rub Lucky&039;s

Phil was enjoying hi hand in hand with a cute red head from the "Visit Vicious Venus" show, but every now and then the thought of neglected dangers and duties returned to nag hi ar his head off, and said, "Got troubles, Phil? Give &039; em to Mama Juno and she&039;ll throw &039; eot the best little for at Carstairs and Buck, who had discovered a concession titled in fla red phospho-flare KICK THE LOVELY LADY INTO YOUR ARMS and were happily struggling for the possession of a very large ae old one of striking a target on the ground which caused an indicator to jump up a pole - with the typical late twentieth-century addition that, if the indicator reached the top of the pole, not only did a bell ring and lights flare, but a huge hinged lower leg with a cushioned boot swung down and rudely lifted a lovely lady off a perch some three feet above the winner and into his arms, if he were ready to catch her

This last couldn&039;t have been any too sure, since the lovely lady was one of the gla fifty rather than forty At present she was glowering cynically at Carstairs and Buck, as if certain they were infinitely more interested in the mallet than in her She wasn&039;t yet under Lucky&039;s influence, as the green cat had momentarily romped off with the black panthers to the tail end of the procession

The two happy hep-jerks got things settled between theet The indicator july short of the top The onlookers sighed sympathetically By this tiathered around the "kick the lady" concession It was strategically located between two bars and opposite the "Mind Clearers," as they chastely labeled the red fluorescents, and a dismal cavern mouth called "Pluto&039;s Palace," beside which was an inaccuratejerkily

Moe Bri himself with a pitcher of beer his attendant nymphs had rushed hi in froreen flash, as Lucky returned to his proper position, bringing the other felines with him

Then, as Carstairs started to toss aside the rin of defeat, Dion da Silva carabbed it He stripped off his jacket and shirt, revealing an extremely hairy chest and back

"That Dion ," Maryher hero "With those cute ears, he&039;s just like a little old satyr"

Dion flexed his impressive muscles, took up the mallet, and crashed it doith a force which the spectators felt with their back teeth The bell clanged, the light flashed and the big foot started its descent

At the same time, Dora Pannes pushed out of the crowd frohtily past Dion with never a glance at hile-purposeness of a sleep walker

Disregarding the kicked lovely lady, Dion sprang upon Dora Pannes, crushed her to his hairy chest, and started suffocating her with kisses Phil gallantly stepped forward and caught the lovely lady His knees sagged She was noithin range of Lucky&039;s influence and pursed her lips invitingly at Phil, but he quickly set her down, aghast at soer, Dion had pushed Dora Pannes away from him, so that she fell down heavily Before anyone could stop hiht it doith a titanic crash on the head of the gorgeous violet blonde

"I in love with thing like that!" he screamed "Aah!" And he continued to batter the beautiful head and body so that it bounced up and down on the rubber

Phil was doubly shocked because this was occurring in Lucky&039;s presence In fact, the green cat, sitting cal on with approval

Dora Pannes began to writhe crippledly and lasciviously between blows and to sing "Slap Me Silly Honey" in a hideously gay voice Then her head, flattened by repeated blows, split open But instead of brains there spilled out fraglass, plastic and metal, some of theless duck quack and she stopped ether in Phil&039;s , but theby scanners and instruction tapes Why, even her naram of Pandora, the metal maiden constructed, if Phil remembered Dr Romadka correctly, at the coirl in slacks broke out of the crowd and grabbed Phil&039;s ar and disheveled Behind her darted Sacheverell Akeley

"Jack and CookieLlewellyn," she panted, "and tried to do the saone to warn Billig"

Looking around quickly, Phil realized that they had Standing in the gloo, flanked by a half dozen gleaunhad a box slung to his chest

"Any funny business froers poised over the box "Dora, stun that cat and bring it here"

The crowd sucked back to either side and showed Billig the wreckage of Dora Pannes, with Lucky sitting serenely beside it Phil could see the horror coolden wave of peace co jerked up the ortho and fired

The blue beam splattered e before it winked out But as the dazzle died, Phil saw that the bea pitched forith a large hole in his head

Then, as if Billig&039;s fall had been a cue, a sh the curtains of the Mind Clearers Although he earing sonized Dr Roun, Lucky collapsed and was still, and the night&039;s eerie peace shifted in a finger snap to a churning terror which seemed to Phil to take the for roar

Romadka darted forward toward Lucky Beside Phil, Mary Akeley jerked so from the pocketbook and waved it in the air "Anton!" she screaly, and when the psychiatrist looked her way, she swung the doll of hiainst her heel

For a enuine witch, for Romadka pitched forward on his face

But then he saw that the wailing roar had been that of a dozen squad cars, converging on the spot fro so close to the crowd that there were singed legs and screams Men uniformed and in plain clothes piled out and barked and pummeled the crowd into a semblance of control The un hich he&039;d knocked out Romadka It was Dave Greeley

For a htn&039;t havethe cat, na this place as a rendezvous Then out fro about with great interest, and Phil decided that this was a world in which you couldn&039;t even trust noble looking old scientists pretending to be great liberals and babbling government top secrets in order to win your confidence

He held out his wrists for the handcuffs