Virginia gave Bronson a warning look and then laughed at him. "Like spending the night in the clink, Ed?" she asked brightly.
"No!" he snapped.
"You needn't have," she said with a smile. "All you had to do was tell them the truth. Why, they'd have thrown Orson Welles into jail for the Martian Invasion if he hadn't been famous."
Bronson started. The Orson Welles affair had taken place a long time ago—before either of them were born, in fact. This rather glorious girl was trying to tell him something.
"Yeah," he drawled, stalling for time.
"All right, so you lost," she told him. "And now, if you don't have to stay here for playing pranks, we can go on home and write it up."
Bronson looked at Mason. Mason shrugged. "What's the pitch?" he asked. "As for me, no—we don't want you though I'd like to have you reprimanded for wasting time."
"Come to think of it, Doctor Mason, how should a man try to tell high authority of some impending form of outrageous doom?" asked Virginia.
"Why—" stammered Doctor Mason, "I—"