f course, as high an honor as could be paid to anybody by the
people who paid it.

Haney said awkwardly, "Lucky they don't know me like you do, Chief. But
it's swell!"

Which it was. But Mike hadn't said a word. The Chief said exuberantly:

"Did you hear that, Mike? Every Mohawk for ten thousand years is gonna
be told that you were a swell guy! Crazy, huh?"

Mike said in an odd voice: "Yeah. I didn't mean that, Chief. It's fine!
But I--I got a letter. I--never thought to get a letter like this."

He looked unbelievingly at the paper in his hands.

"Mash note?" asked the Chief. His tone was a little bit harsh. Mike was
a midget. And there were women who were fools. It would be unbearable if
some half-witted female had written Mike the sort of gushing letter
that some half-witted females might write.

Mike shook his head, with an odd, quick smile.

"Not what you think, Chief. But it is from a girl. She sent me her
picture. It's a--swell letter. I'm--going to answer it. You can look at
her picture. She looks kind of--nice."

He handed the Chief a snapshot. The Chief's face changed. Haney looked
over his shoulder. He passed the picture to Joe and said ferociously:
"You Mike! You doggoned Don Juan! The Chief and me have got to warn her
what kinda guy you are! Stealing from blind men! Fighting cops----"

Joe looked at the picture. It was a very sweet small face, and the eyes
that looked out of the photograph were very honest and yearning. And Joe
understood. He grinned at Mike. Because this girl had the distinctive
look that Mike had. She was a midget, too.

"She's--thirty-nine inches tall," said Mike, almost stunned. "She's just
two inches shorter than me. And--she says she doesn't mind being a
midget so much since she heard about me. I'm going to write her."

But it would be, of course, a long time before there was a way for mail
to get down to Earth.

It was a long time. Now it was possible to send up robot rockets to the
Platform. They came up. When the second arrived, Haney went out to pull
it in. Joe forgot to notify Brown, in writing, an hour before launching
a rocket recovery vehicle (space wagon) according to paragraph 3 of the
formal memo, nor the time of launching in hours, minutes, etc., by
Greenwich Mean Time (paragraph 4), nor was the testing of all equipment
made before moving it into the airlock. This was because the testing
equipment was in the airlock, where it belonged. And the commands for
l