"CAPTAIN JASON!"
Jason subsided.
"Captain, Annex has been most forbearing all these years. We've overlooked your incomprehensible phobia—this—this confoundedly unfounded impossible bias against such an irreproachable philanthropist as Launcelot Raichi—because of the sterling quality of your ... ah ... other work. However—"
On the desk, the Commissioner's fingers took up a measured tattoo. "—should this fixed idea begin to encroach on—uh—uh—"
"All right ... Sir." Sullenly, Jason submitted. "I understand."
With a self-congratulatory smirk up at the ceiling that separated them from Executive Level, the bland face of the Commissioner smoothed out. "All right, Captain, as long as we understand each other ..."
Sourly, Jason got himself back to his own office. Drumming his own fingers on his own desk and glaring at his own desk sergeant, he purged his soul.
"—damned equipment would only work, I'd gather him in! They couldn't stop me, then! But—" Jason choked. When he could speak again, "He's never studied a lick in his life, I tell you! Yet he makes a he-cow's behind out of the best man and the best scientific equipment Annex can provide! How? How, I ask you! He doesn't know the first blasted thing about any blasted thing in any blasted science!"
That was true. Conversely, Jason didn't know about Lonnie's philosophy.