During the following weeks I suppose I must have appeared at the Foundation at least a dozen times. I was even beginning to draw a small studio audience. Scientists from all over the country came around to stare thoughtfully at me and to ask me probing questions. I don't know, maybe they figured I must have sneaked down from Mars. Any day now I expected the FBI to drop in and ask me where I'd hid my saucer.
On the nights I wasn't wrestling I got in the habit of going places with Panda. She said she wanted to record the reactions of the unwary human horde to my nauseating personality.
As long as I didn't have anything else to do, I didn't mind. But I could tell Dr. MacCluett was beginning to resent these field trips. Couple of times I caught him giving me a sort of measuring stare. It reminded me of the way that bear in the carnival used to look at me—like he wished he could get his muzzle off.
I mentioned this to Panda. "That Dr. MacCluett doesn't like my going out with you so often," I told her. "I'm making him jealous."
She almost broke herself up with girlish glee over that. "Oh, brother!" she shrieked. "How could anybody possibly get jealous of you, Freddy?"
She had a good point. It didn't sound reasonable. "All the same," I insisted, "that Dr. MacCluett is getting jealous."
She told me to stop worrying about it. "I'll handle the good doctor," she said. It was like a kid with a toy blaster telling you he'd handle that armored column.
The very next day the good doctor lowered the boom on me. Panda was lecturing at some woman's club out in Pomona when it happened. I hadn't planned on appearing at the Foundation that afternoon, but Dr. MacCluett called up and asked me if I would stop in. He sounded so genial I decided Panda must have informed him he now loved me like a brother.
For once there were no visiting neurologists waiting in the lab. In fact, there was nobody there but Dr. MacCluett.