We dropped imperturbable Fitzgerald on his roofstage at the lower end of Nutmeg Street; then Browne dropped a relieved me two blocks up and proceeded the five blocks to his enormous solar house at the hill's summit.
I energized the passenger shaft, buttoned it to optimum descent and dropped to first. There was a note from Tessie saying she'd gone shopping with Fitzgerald's wife, Miriam. So I'd start celebrating alone!
I punched the servomech for Scotch-on-the-rocks. As I sat sipping it I kept thinking about Maitland Browne. It wasn't just the recollection of the ride from Brookhaven. It was also the Scotch. Association.
I thought back to the night Tessie and I had gone up to Browne's to spend the evening, and Browne invited me to sit in a new plush chair. I sat all right, but promptly found that I was completely unable to rise despite the fact that I was in full possession of my faculties. He'd then taken our respective wives for a midnight 'copter ride, leaving me to escape the chair's invisible embrace if I could. I couldn't.
Luckily he'd forgotten that his liquor cabinet was within arm's reach of the chair; I'd made devastating inroads on a pinch bottle by the time they'd returned. He switched off his psionic machine but fast then, and didn't ever try to trap me in it again!
The visifone buzzed and I leaped to it, thinking of Tessie out shopping in her delicate condition—
I felt momentary relief, then startlement.
It was Fitzgerald—Fitzgerald with fair features flushed, Fitzgerald the imperturbable one stammering with excitement!
"Now, wait a second!" I said in amazement. "Calm down, for Heaven's sake! What's this about a census?"