"Better give it to him, Larry," Willard Saxton said from down the bar. Willard is the Advertiser's science editor and is an authority on the planets, especially Mars. "He'll probably turn you in if you throw him out."
Larry muttered and looked mulish, but he rang up the little man's money and gave him a bourbon and water. The little guy drank it and looked at himself in the bar mirror with an expression that was just short of being a sneer. Larry grunted and went back to fiddling with the television set.
Abe Marker came over and sat down on the stool to my left.
"They're doing this all over town tonight," he said, explaining to the little man across me. "The bars have to observe curfew as usual, but most of them are letting a few regular customers stay late to see the Marscast. Everybody is anxious to know what Colonel Sanderson and his crew found up there, so—"
"They're going to be disappointed," the little man said. He sounded sour but positive. "Mars ain't what people think it is, not by a hell of a sight. It stinks."
We all looked up at that, and somebody snickered.
"Have you been to Mars, sir?"
The little man didn't seem to mind when we laughed.
"Maybe," he said, and shoved his shot glass forward. "Another bourbon, bartender."