I turned around and there was Mike Holiday, as big as life and twice as drunk.
He waddled his bulk over to me—Mike always waddles when he's soused—from the table where he'd been sitting.
"By the Holy Jumping Wodo," he crowed, "I'll bet my left arm you came to get a zloor."
I'd been grinning and holding out my hand to clasp his, but that stiffened me.
He saw it and began to laugh uproariously. "Another joiner of the club!" he yelped. "Come on over and meet your fellow members. You got one of them Westley contracts too?"
That did it.
I went over and met the boys. Mike Holiday wasn't the only acquaintance of mine in Fort Mars. In fact, it was like a convention of the outstanding professional hunters of Earth.
They all shouted their greetings, some of them laughing so hard tears rolled down their cheeks. Evidently they got a big kick every time a newcomer was added to their ranks. I shook hands with some, but most were too hilarious to go through the ceremony.
Blackie Conover yelled, "I'll bet anybody two to one he brought a .22 Hornet to shoot himself a zloor. Two to one!"
"Do we look like suckers?" Mike yelled back at him.