"Inside two minutes I had all the clothes off Farquarson except his sliskin shorts. At first he was too surprised to complain, even though he turned out to have a considerable paunch. But when I took the paint bomb and began paintin' big bright daisies on his shoulders, back, and tummy-tum, he started to heat up; and when he found out what my idea was, he really did get talky and obstreperous. 'I won't do it,' he said vigorously, 'I absolutely refuse. Not before these animals. Have you no conception, McBream, of dignity? I'd rather—' he glanced out of the port toward the toothy Talipygians and winced a little—'I'd rather be dead.'
"I tried to be reasonable with him. 'Listen, Denis,' I told him, 'it's absolutely immaterial to me whether they eat you or not. In fact, I'm all in favor of their cutting you up in little pieces for a mess of shis-kebab. It would be the finest thing to happen to the System since the discovery of Alpha-Omega power. Yet juicer!' (My feelin's overcame me a little when I thought of all the trouble Farquarson had got me in.) 'But if they eat you, they eat me too, for a side dish, and we can't have that. On your way! Get!' I had to give him a push or two, but he got."
"A push?" I queried. Joseph's narrative was becoming interesting.
"With my foot. It was all to the good, I think—it limbered him up. Well, we went outside the life craft, hesitated a second or so, and went into our dance.
"I was prepared to do my part. I'd painted big yellow flowers all over myself too, and I didn't mind how big a fool I looked, provided it saved my life. But it was plain right from the start that Farquarson, reluctant as he was, was the star of the show. The Talipygians hardly noticed me. They stopped bumping almost immediately and clustered around Denis with their crests popping off and on like space port signal lights.
"That guy really had talent. The idea of him writing a cook book with a fancy title when he could perform like that! After he got started he jumped up and down like one inspired, and once when he fell down, probably accidentally, you could have heard the noise the Talipygians made applaudin' with their flippers on the other side of Iapetus. Funny! Why, he'd have made a fortune on the stereo. All he needed was a little well-timed encouragement."
"Encouragement?" I questioned.
Joseph cast down his eyes. "Well, you know," he said vaguely, "things.... After a while the Talipygians themselves got the idea, an' whenever Farquarson showed signs of slowin' down they shot long, slow, low-voltage sparks out of their electric crests at him. One missed him once and hit me instead; it was just like being stuck with a long, sharp pin.
"Pretty soon Farquarson got so warm the daisies on his tummy began runnin'. The Talipygian chief gooped and guggled and geeked at me until I got the idea and fetched the bomb and painted them on real bright again. I had to renew his daisies three times before we got out of there."