I did my best. The first thing to do is make them vomit. I pee’d into a tumbler and forced it down Chatterton’s throat. No nausea. Too far gone. I ran down the stairs and banged on a door. It was opened by Betsy Ross’ grandmother, complaining. I shoved past her, saw a jug of milk, took it and a clutch of charcoal from the cold fireplace. She had now graduated to screaming. I returned to my house call. Charcoal and milk. Nothing. He was gone, greatly regretted, and what the hell was I going to do with 24 oz. (troy) of gold which was dragging the butt pocket of my coveralls?

Well, I had to stall anyway until the Mantis put the snatch on me so I went for a walk in the rain. At Fleet Street I turned off and went into the Cheshire Cheese to see if I could parlay the ingot into a drink and maybe dry off in front of the fire, which was eclipsed by a snorting whale and a simpering dogfish. The Grand Cham and Boswell.

“What would you do, sir, if you were locked up in a tower with a newborn babe?” dogfish was asking. The whale heaved and growled but before he could answer that monumental question I was yanked back to the dingbat, dripping all over the circuits to the anguish of Herb.

“OutOutOut!” he hollered. “They’ve left.”

I out.

“Why didn’t you give Thos. the gold?”

“Too late, man. He gone when I get.”

“Oh, drat.”

“Try again, a little earlier.”

“I can’t. The damn thing won’t shoot the same decade twice. To tell the truth, Guig, I think it’s a lemon.”

Maybe that’s why his Health, Education, and Welfare program never works. I thanked Herb, still using the Group XX English and returned to Spangland, the Gem of the Ocean.