he whole table. The others removed
their drinks, Handy Sam putting his on the floor so he could reach it
more easily.

"This is what I got out of checking all the screwball factories I could
reach personal and by mail," Clocker said. "I went around and talked to
the doctors and watched the patients in the places near here, and wrote
to the places I couldn't get to. Then I broke everything down like it
was a stud and track record."

Buttonhole tugged Doc's lapel. "That ain't scientific, I suppose," he
challenged.

"Duplication of effort," Doc replied, patiently allowing Buttonhole to
retain his grip. "It was all done in an organized fashion over a period
of more than half a century. But let us hear the rest."

* * * * *

"First," said Clocker, "there are more male bats than fillies."

"Females are inherently more stable, perhaps because they have a more
balanced chromosome arrangement."

"There are more nuts in the brain rackets than labor chumps."

"Intellectual activity increases the area of conflict."

"There are less in the sticks than in the cities, and practically none
among the savages. I mean real savages," Clocker told Handy Sam, "not
marks for con merchants."

"I was wondering," Handy Sam admitted.

"Complex civilization creates psychic insecurity," said Doc.

"When these catatonics pull out, they don't remember much or maybe
nothing," Clocker went on, referring to his charts.

Doc nodded his shaggy white head. "Protective amnesia."

"I seen hundreds of these mental gimps. They work harder and longer at
what they're doing, even just laying down and doing nothing, than they
ever did when they were regular citizens."

"Concentration of psychic energy, of course."

"And they don't get a damn cent for it."

* * * * *

Doc hesitated, put down his half-filled tumbler. "I beg your pardon?"

"I say they're getting stiffed," Clocker stated. "Anybody who works that
hard ought to get paid. I don't mean it's got to be money, although
that's the only kind of pay Zelda'd work for. Right, Arnold?"

"Well, sure," said Arnold Wilson Wyle wonderingly. "I never thought of
it like that. Zelda doing time-steps for nothing ten-fifteen hours a
day--that ain't Zelda."

"If you ask me, she _likes_ her job," Clocker said. "Same with the other
catatonics I seen. But for no pay?"

Doc surprisingly pushed his drink away, something that only a serious