"It's no more plastered than you are." I was sore because he'd been a lot quicker grabbing the pitcher. "The Greatest Show in Space. Phooey! I've wet-nursed Shannon's Imperial Circus around the Triangle for eleven years, and I know. It's lousy, it's mangy, it's broken-down! Nothing works, from the ship to the roustabouts. In short, it stinks!"
I must have had the pitcher oftener than I thought. Nobody insults Buckhalter Shannon's Imperial Circus to Buckhalter Shannon's face unless he's tired and wants a long rest in a comfy fracture-frame.
Shannon got up. He got up slowly. I had plenty of time to see his grey-green eyes get sleepy, and hear the quarter-Earth-blood Martian girl wailing about love over by the battered piano, and watch the slanting cat-eyes of the little dark people at the tables swing round toward us, pleased and kind of hungry.
I had plenty of time to think how I only weigh one-thirty-seven to Shannon's one-seventy-five, and how I'm not as young as I used to be.
I said, "Bucky. Hold on, fella. I...."
Somebody said, "Excuse me, gentlemen. Is one of you Mister Buckhalter Shannon?"
Shannon put his hands down on his belt. He closed his eyes and smiled pleasantly and said, very gently:
"Would you be collecting for the feed bill, or the fuel?"
I shot a glance at the newcomer. He'd saved me from a beating, even if he was a lousy bill-collecter; and I felt sorry for him. Bucky Shannon settled his shoulders and hips like a dancer.
The stranger was a little guy. He even made me look big. He was dressed in dark-green synthesilk, very conservative. There was a powdering of grey in his hair and his skin was pink, soft, and shaved painfully clean. He had the kind of a face that nice maiden-ladies will trust with their last dime. I looked for his strong-arm squad.