Is he interested in all those other worlds who send their dwarf reps out on the backs of eagles? Nope. Nor does he want to write a classic of anthropology, with the lightning-struck grouped into a subculture, even secretly organized, handshakes with sharp cusp-flicks of fingernails, private monthly magazine A Nickel Saved (which looks perfectly innocent, old Ben Franklin after inflation, unless you know the other half of the proverb: “… is a stockpile of nickel.” Making the real quote nickel-magnate Mark Hanna’s: “You have been in politics long enough to know that no man in public office owes the public anything.” So the real title is Long Enough, which Those Who Know, know. The text of each issue of the magazine, when transformed this way, yields many interesting messages). To outsiders it’s just a pleasant little club newsletter—Jed Plunkitt held a barbecue for the Iowa Chapter the last weekend in April. Heard about the Amperage Contest, Jed. Tough luck! But come next Barbecue, you’ll be back good as new…. Minnie Calkins (Chapter 1.793) got married Easter Sunday to a screen-door salesman from California. Sorry to say he’s not eligible for Membership—at least not yet. But with all those screen doors around, we’ll sure keep our fingers crossed! … Your Editor has been receiving many, many “Wha hoppen?” ’s concerning the Spring Convention in Decatur when all the lights failed during the blessing. Glad to report now that trouble was traced finally to a giant transient in the line, “Kind of an electrical tidal wave,” sez Hank Faffner, our engineer-on-the-scene. “Every bulb in the place burned out, a ceilingful of sooty, sterile eggs.” Quite a poet, Hank! Now if you can only find out where that spike came from—

But does the Polish undertaker in the rowboat care about busting this code, about secret organizations or recognizable subcultures? No, he doesn’t. The reason he is seeking these people out is that he thinks it will help him in his job. Can you dig that, gates? He wants to know how people behave before and after lightning bolts, so he’ll know better how to handle bereaved families.

“You are perverting a great discovery to the uses of commerce,” sez Thanatz, stepping ashore. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” He is no more than five minutes into the empty town at the edge of the marsh when nockle KKAHH-UHNN! nocklenockle nockle an enormous blast of light and sound hits the water back where the undertaker, peeved at what he takes to be no gratitude, is hauling away.

“Oh,” comes his faint voice. “Oh, ho. Oh-ho-ho-ho!”

“Nobody lives here but us.” A solid figure, a whispering silhouette, charcoal-colored, has materialized in Thanatz’s path. “We do not harm visitors. But it would be better if you took another way.”