It was at this point, just as Lloyd was thinking that it was time for him to get back to his father and how he hoped the professor would give him a bottle of the tiger powder, that another sound came from behind the screen partition-a very odd sound that was soon followed by odder noises still.

“What was that?” Lloyd asked when he could no longer resist.

“What?” answered the showman coyly.

“That. That!”

“Hmm. Yes…” the showman was forced to acknowledge now as the sounds grew odder and louder. “They’re awake.”

“They?” the boy repeated. “Who are they?”

Mulrooney’s face fell as if he had put his foot in his mouth again.

“The Ambassadors from Mars. The strangest strangers and pilgrims you will ever see,” he said at last. “But, my boy, you must swear not to tell a soul, because it’s not my intention to exhibit them yet.”

“Exhibit them?”

“Well, my commitment is not to exploit them but to help them maximize those features that offer such singular advantages if understood properly and positioned effectively. As their sponsor, I am obliged to insure that such an arrangement is practicable and sustainable-in a word, sufficiently profitable to cover the costs of their maintenance.”

“May I see… them?”

Knowing that the child, with curiosity now aroused, would not be likely to give in and go, the professor reluctantly motioned for him to approach the cubicle. This boy has got under my skin in the damnedest way, Mulrooney thought to himself, as he pulled back the swath of drape to reveal a sight that made even Lloyd’s mouth drop open.

The figures were dressed in clothes that conjured up images of Washington and Jefferson at the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

“I call ’em Urim and Thummim,” the professor announced. “Or the Ambassadors from Mars. Don’t know what they call themselves.”

The creatures who now stood before Lloyd were remarkable individuals by anyone’s standards. Short but not exactly dwarfs, they were obviously brothers-both microcephalics, or pinheads. They were Negroid, perhaps, but pale-skinned, with highly distorted features and an animalish clicking-grunting type of language.