That explained a lot of things. I had often wondered why Lancelot Biggs, whose uncle, Prendergast Biggs, was a Vice-president of the Corporation, should have chosen to serve out his junior officership on a wallowing, old-fashioned Earth-to-Venus freighter like the Saturn. Now it all became clear and I began to feel like the adviser of a lovelorn column in a daily newspaper.
I said, "So to put it poetically, Biggs, you're a little bit off the gravs for the gal, hey?"
"Little bit?" he said miserably. "Sparks, you'll never know."
"That's what you think," I told him, remembering how it came out "friendship."
"What?" Then he forgot his curiosity in a burst of—for him—uncommon petulance. "But I'll not take this lying down, Sparks. I'll show the skipper I have a right to love his daughter. I don't care if he is a graduate of the N.R.I., I'll show the leather-pussed old space cow—"
"Are you by any chance," roared a voice, "referrin' to me, Mister Biggs!"
We both started. The Skipper was standing in the doorway!
I said, "Pardon me, folks! I've got to see a guy about a shroud!" and tried to slide past Cap Hanson to the safety of the deck, but the Old Man roared me down with a blast.
"Come back here, Sparks! I want you as witness!" He turned to Biggs, whose face looked like a prism revolving in sunlight. "So! So I'm a leather-pussed old space cow, Mister Biggs?"