Chiun shook his head slowly, barely moving the strand of beard.

"Nothing is right," said Chiun, the Master of Sinanju.

"Has someone broken the television?"

"Do you see the remnants of an intruder?"

"No, Chiun."

"Then how could anyone have broken my machine of dreams? No. Worse. Far, far worse."

"I'm sorry. I have a problem myself."

"You? Do you know what they have done to the beauty of the daytime dramas? Do you know the desecration that has been performed upon the life art of your nation?"

Remo shook his head. He didn't know. But what he gathered in the next few moments was this:

As the Planet Revolves had been irreparably ruined. Doctor Blayne Huntington had been performing a legal abortion on Janet Wofford, daughter of the shipping magnate Archibald Wofford, who was financing Dr. Huntington's experiments in nuclear transmography, when nurse Adele Richards realized the baby was probably her brother's who was serving life in Attica for leading the prison revolt against anti-feminist literature.

"Yeah?" said Remo who always had a hard time following the soap operas.

"There was physical violence," said Chiun. And as he explained it, the nurse struck the doctor. Not only was there the intrusion of violence, but she struck him wrong. It was not a blow at all.

"But they're just actors, Little Father."

"I know that now," said Chiun. "Fraud. I will not watch another show. I shall stay in America, barren of joy, without the little breezes of pleasure in a stifled old life."

Remo, his voice heavy with sadness, said that they might not be staying.

"This is a hard thing for me to tell you, Little Father," said Remo and he lowered his eyes to the carpeting, which even in the Plaza was becoming threadbare.

"The beginning of all wisdom is ignorance," said Chiun. "It is a shame that you are always at the beginning." And this thought struck the Master of Sinanju as so humorous, he repeated it and laughed. But his pupil did not laugh with him and this Chiun attributed to the famous American lack of humor.