"What! Are you actually suggesting that we demobilize the country?"
"I'm telling you now," Toffee said earnestly. "And I'm telling you to do it immediately. Get religion, brother."
"I see," the Chair said quietly. His hand moved cautiously toward an alarm button.
"I'm sorry," Toffee murmured, "but I haven't time to waste on any more guards." She lifted her hand, made the necessary motion, and the Chair departed his moorings with a leap that sent his glasses sailing off into the air.
"Murder!" he screamed, and crashed back into his seat in a fit of acute discomfort.
"Well," Marc sighed. "Fair's fair. These boys have been giving everyone else that localized pain for years. Now they're just getting a shot of their own medicine. By the way, what happened to that little man from Intelligence?"
"He's in with the congressmen," Toffee said.
Dusting her hands lightly, she turned away just in time to see a door swing open to permit the pompous entrance of several over-costumed and over-decorated individuals who had obviously played the army and navy game with the right set of loaded dice.
One, however, stood ahead of and apart from the others. He glittered and shone with all the bogus brilliance of a dime store jewelry counter. From the peak of his duck-tailed blonde hair to the tips of his two-toned shoes—passing quickly over his rust-red jacket and lemon yellow trousers—he was the absolute end and final gasp in well-upholstered commercial entertainers. As he stood impressively in the doorway his shirt front added the final touch of elegance by lighting up with the classical quote: Kiss Me Quick!
"Good night!" Marc said. "President Flemm! And the heads of the War Department!"