"Don't anybody worry," Jack said sadly. "I'm not looking for a fight even if I was handed one. I'm too downhearted about this innocent, thoughtless, uneducated wife of mine."
"Uneducated?" she exploded. "After being married to you all these years? You got so many rotten ideas you're a whole university. Well, I've graduated. And shut up, now, 'cause I got to tell Phil here where he can find Moe Brimstine and maybe Billig and his cat."
Jack whirled toward her. "Juno, you don't know what you're saying. You don't know what you'd be doing. Just come upstairs a minute and I'll explain the whole deal."
"Come upstairs!" Juno mocked. "Tell that to the green farm girls trying to break into the wrestling racket. Now look here, Phil. Brimstine...."
"Juno!" Jack yelled, "I didn't want to tell you in front of everybody, but there's a million dollars riding on this deal for me and you, if Billig pulls out of his trouble. Which he can do, so long as he has the green cat to trade to the government. And look, Juno, Billig's lost all his bodyguards and power and everything—he's got to depend on Brimstine and me and Cookie."
Juno stared at him. For a second or two there was silence. Then Sacheverell coughed delicately.
"Jack," he said unhurriedly, "I am convinced that you have a deep appreciation of spiritual values. Your aura may flicker and dim, but in the end it always glows out bright and clear. Yesterday you gave up ten thousand dollars Moe Brimstine would have given you for the Green One, just in order that we might worship him properly and help him change the world. Now if you were willing to do that...."
"I know, I know," Jack snarled at him impatiently, "but this time it's really big money."
Sacheverell looked up at the ceiling, as if he were silently telling some god just how evil a world it was.
"I was flattered by you and Mary for a while," Jack went on. "I liked your style and I fell for some of your wild ideas. I played along with you to the tune of ten thousand dollars, though I won't say I wasn't going to steal the green cat back and sell it to Brimstine after you'd had your fun with it. But tuck your aura up over your ears and get this through your head: this time it's really big money."