n. "Happy Graves, you old son of a gun!" He broke
into a run, dignity forgotten, and when he got to me he grabbed both
my shoulders in his powerful hands to shake me as if he were some sort
of terrier--and I a rat. His joy seemed all out of proportion until I
remembered he probably hadn't seen anybody from school for a long
time; and until I further remembered that he would have been alerted
by the State Department to Aunt Mattie's visit and would have been
looking forward to it with dread and misgivings.

To realize he had a friend at court must really have overjoyed him.

"Johnny," I said. "Long time." It had been. Five-six years anyway. I
held out my hand in the old school gesture. He let loose my shoulders
and grabbed it in the traditional manner. We went through the ritual,
which my psychiatrist would have called juvenile, and then he looked
at me pointedly.

"You remember what it means," he said, a little anxiously I thought,
and looked significantly at my hand. "That we will always stand by
each other, through thick and thin." His eyes were pulled upward to
the open door of the yacht.

"You can expect it to be both thick and thin," I said drily. "If you
know my Aunt Mattie."

"She's your aunt?" he asked, his eyes widening. "Matthewa H. Tombs is
_your_ aunt. I never knew. To think, all those years at school, and I
never knew. Why, Hap, Happy, old boy, this is wonderful. Man, have I
been worried!"

"Don't stop on my account," I said, maybe a little dolefully.
"Somebody reported to the Daughters of Terra that you let the natives
run around out here stark naked, and if Aunt Mattie says she's going
to put mother hubbards on them, then that's exactly what she's going
to do. You can depend on that, old man."

"Mother Hub...." he gasped. He looked at me strangely. "It's a joke,"
he said. "Somebody's pulled a practical joke on the D.T.'s. Have you
ever seen our natives? Pictures of them? Didn't anybody check up on
what they're like before you came out here? It's a joke. A practical
joke on the D.T.'s. It has to be."

"I wouldn't know," I said. "But if they're naked they won't be for
long, I can tell you that. Aunt Mattie...."

His eyes left my face and darted up to the door of the ship which was
no longer a black oval. The unexplained bewilderment of his expression
was not diminished as Aunt Mattie came through the door, out on the
loading platform, and started down the steps. He grew a little white
around the