One of the superperfect clerks coughed slightly into a microphone.
"A gentleman insists upon seeing you personally, sir," he announced.
"Very well, I will see him now. Show him in, please," and the visitor was ceremoniously ushered into the Presence.
"This is a very nice place you have here, Mr. Cartiff, but did it ever occur to you that—"
"It never did and it never will," Kinnison snapped. He still lolled at ease in his chair, but his eyes were frosty and his voice carried an icy sting. "I quit paying protection to little shots a good many years ago. Or are you from Menjo Bleeko?"
The visitor's eyes widened. He gasped, as though even to utter that dread name were sheer sacrilege. "No, but No.—"
"Save it, slob!" The cold venom of that crisp but quiet order set the fellow back onto his heels. "I am thoroughly sick of this thing of every half-baked tinhorn zwilnik in space calling himself No. 1 as soon as he can steal enough small change to hire an ape to walk around behind him packing a couple of ray guns. If that louse of a boss of yours has a name, use it. If he hasn't, call him 'The Louse.' But cancel that No. 1 stuff. In my book there is no No. 1 in the whole damned Universe. Doesn't your mob know yet who and what Cartiff is?"
"What do we care?" The visitor gathered courage visibly. "A good big bomb—"
"Clam it, you squint-eyed slime-lizard!" The Lensman's voice was still low and level, but his tone bit deep and his words drilled in. "That stuff?" he waved inclusively at the magnificent hall. "Sucker bait, nothing more. The whole works cost only a hundred thousand. Chicken feed. It wouldn't even nick the edge of the roll if you blew up ten of them. Bomb it any time you feel the urge. But take notice that it would make me sore—plenty sore—and that I would do things about it; because I'm in a big game, not this petty-larceny racketeering and chiseling that your mob is doing, and when a toad gets in my way I step on it. So go back and tell that No. 1 of yours to case a job a lot more thoroughly than he did this one before he starts throwing his weight around. Now scram, before I feed your carcass to the other rats around here!"