"That Dion man is sure male looking," Mary murmured to Phil appreciatively, eying her hero. "With those cute ears, he's just like a little old satyr."
Dion flexed his impressive muscles, took up the mallet, and crashed it down with a force which the spectators felt with their back teeth. The bell clanged, the light flashed and the big foot started its descent.
At the same time, Dora Pannes pushed out of the crowd from the direction of Pluto's Palace and walked haughtily past Dion with never a glance at him or anyone else. She was moving toward Lucky with the single-purposeness of a sleep walker.
Disregarding the kicked lovely lady, Dion sprang upon Dora Pannes, crushed her to his hairy chest, and started suffocating her with kisses. Phil gallantly stepped forward and caught the lovely lady. His knees sagged. She was now within range of Lucky's influence and pursed her lips invitingly at Phil, but he quickly set her down, aghast at something else.
With a sudden howl of furious anger, Dion had pushed Dora Pannes away from him, so that she fell down heavily. Before anyone could stop him, Dion snatched up the mallet and brought it down with a titanic crash on the head of the gorgeous violet blonde.
"I in love with thing like that!" he screamed. "Aah!" And he continued to batter the beautiful head and body so that it bounced up and down on the rubber.
Phil was doubly shocked because this was occurring in Lucky's presence. In fact, the green cat, sitting calmly in front of Phil, seemed to be looking on with approval.
Dora Pannes began to writhe crippledly and lasciviously between blows and to sing "Slap Me Silly Honey" in a hideously gay voice. Then her head, flattened by repeated blows, split open. But instead of brains there spilled out fragments of glass, plastic and metal, some of them with wires attached. Her voice rose in a final meaningless duck quack and she stopped moving.
A number of realizations fitted themselves together in Phil's mind at this proof that Dora Pannes was not a human being, but the most advanced of mannequins created by Fun Incorporated's technicians, a robot operating by scanners and instruction tapes. Why, even her name was a pun from Greek mythology, a rough anagram of Pandora, the metal maiden constructed, if Phil remembered Dr. Romadka correctly, at the command of Zeus.
As Dion finally put down the mallet, a girl in slacks broke out of the crowd and grabbed Phil's arm. It was Mitzie Romadka, panting and disheveled. Behind her darted Sacheverell Akeley.