"--nity," Colleen said distantly; she was inspecting the authentic long-ago dug up Epstein bust in the niche that divided the west wall shelves of books, where Joseph Adams kept his reference texts on TV commercials of the last, past, great twentieth century, in particular the religious and the Mars candy bar inspired creations of Stan Freberg. "A miserable metaphor," she murmured. "A yeoman rat... yeomen were young villagers during the Medieval period, and I bet even though you're such a pro you didn't know that." She nodded to a leady which had come to the library door at her request. "Get my cloak and have my flapple brought to the main entrance." To Joe she said, "I'm flapping back to my own villa." When he didn't answer she said, "Joe, try it, the entire speech, without that assist; write it in your own words. And then you won't have 'yeoman rats' to make you so cross."

He thought, I don't think honestly I could do it, in my own words, without this machine; I'm hooked on it now.

Outside, the fog had managed a complete success; he saw, with one brief sideways glance, that it inhabited the world right to the window of his library. Well, he thought, anyhow we're spared another one of those brilliant, radioactive-particles-in-suspension-for-all-eternity sunsets.

"Your flapple, Miss Hackett," the leady announced, "is at the main entrance and I hear by remote that your type II chauffeur holds the door open for you. And due to the evening vapors one of Mr. Adams' household servants will shed warm air about you until you are tucked safely inside."

"Jeez," Joseph Adams said, and shook his head.

Colleen said, "You teached it, dear. It got its precious jargony linguistic habits straight out of you."

"Because," he said bitterly, "I like style and pomp and ritual." Turning to her, appealing, he said, "Brose told me in a memo, it showed up at the Agency directly from his own bureau in Geneva, that this speech has to use a squirrel as the operational entity. What can you say about them that hasn't already been said? They save; they're thrifty. We know that. Do they do anything else good that you know of, that you could _hang_ a goddam _moral_ on?" And he thought, they're all dead. There just isn't such a life form any more. But we still extol its virtues... after having exterminated it as a race.