both ways, dear lady_, Jrann-Pttt ideated. _And I
must say your species will prove far easier to peel for the cooking
pot._

"Monster! What are you doing?" Mortland dropped his twigs and pulled the
mosquito-bat away from a bush. "Don't eat those berries, you silly ass;
the bush won't like it!" The mosquito-bat piped wrathfully.

Jrann-Pttt probed with intentness. "You know, I rather think the bush
wants its berries to be eaten. Something to do with--er--propagating
itself. Of course it has a false impression as to what is going to be
done with the berries, but the important fact is that it won't put up
any resistance."

"All right, old fellow." Mortland released the mosquito-bat, which
promptly flew back to the bush. "I'm not the custodian of your morals."

"I wonder whether we could eat those berries, too," Professor Bernardi
remarked pensively.

"Carl!" Mrs. Bernardi's tear-stained face flushed pink. "Why--why,
that's almost indecent!"

"We eat beans, don't we?" Mortland pointed out. "They're seeds."

"We also eat meat," Miss Anspacher added.

There was silence. "I imagine," Mrs. Bernardi murmured, "it's because
we never get to meet the meat socially." She avoided the saurians' eyes.

"We'd better see how Monster makes out, though," Miss Anspacher
observed, replenishing her lipstick, "before we try the berries
ourselves. The fact that the bush is anxious to dispose of them doesn't
mean they can't be poisonous."

"Why should Monster sacrifice himself for us?" Mortland retorted hotly,
overlooking the fact that Monster's purpose in eating the berries was
almost certainly not an altruistic one. "If we can risk his life, we can
risk our own." He crammed a handful of berries into his mouth defiantly.
"I say, they're good!"

Algol sniffed the bush with disgust, then turned away.

"See?" said Miss Anspacher. "They're undoubtedly poisonous. When he's
really hungry, he isn't so fussy." She combed her hair.

"But is he really hungry?" Bernardi asked suspiciously. "Come here,
Algol. Nice kitty." He bent down and sniffed the cat's breath. The cat
sniffed his interestedly. Their whiskers touched. "I thought so. Fish!"

"You mean," Mrs. Bernardi shrieked, "that while we were struggling
through that water, alternately starving and drowning by centimeters,
that wretched cat has not only been walking along here dry as toast, but
gorging himself on fish?"

"Now, now, Mrs. Bernardi," Jrann-Pttt said. "Being a dumb anima