The man in the brown suit set down his glass rather suddenly.
“My Martian?”
“Now listen. I may be just a little bit drunk, but my logic remains unimpaired. I can still put two and two together. Either you know about the Martians, or you don’t. If you do, there’s no point in giving me that, ‘What, my Martian?’ routine. I know you have a Martian. Your Martian knows you have a Martian. My Martian knows. The point is, do you know? Think hard,” Lyman urged solicitously.
“No, I haven’t got a Martian,” the reporter said, taking a quick drink. The edge of the glass clicked against his teeth.
“Nervous, I see,” Lyman remarked. “Of course you have got a Martian. I suspect you know it.”
“What would I be doing with a Martian?” the brown man asked with dogged dogmatism.
“What would you be doing without one? I imagine it’s illegal. If they caught you running around without one they’d probably put you in a pound or something until claimed. Oh, you’ve got one, all right. So have I. So has he, and he, and he—and the bartender.” Lyman enumerated the other barflies with a wavering forefinger.
“Of course they have,” the brown man said. “But they’ll all go back to Mars tomorrow and then you can see a good doctor. You’d better have another dri—”
He was turning toward the bartender when Lyman, apparently by accident, leaned close to him and whispered urgently,