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There were none, so Arjen dismissed the captains and went to his cabin, regretting, not for the first time, that senior commanders had to have private quarters but too-close personal contact with his subordinates would be bad for discipline.

At the end of the corridor he heard the closing of the door, the scraping of the key. He was afraid the detective might follow him to his room to heckle him further. To avoid that he hurried to the lower floor. He wanted to be alone. He must have time to accustom himself to this degrading fate which loomed in the too-close future.

I keyed for Stores; the object must have hit about there. "This is the Captain," I said. "Any damage there?" I got a hum of background noise, then a too-close transmission. "Uh, Cap'n, we got a hole in the aft bulkhead here. I slapped a seat pad over it. Man, that coulda killed somebody." I flipped off the intercom and started aft at a run. My visitors had evaporated.

Cases have been known of men without a scratch laughing and crying simultaneously after a too-close acquaintance with the German hymnology of hate. The results are, however, sometimes disappointing from the German point of view, as in the case of the soldier who, being spattered with dirt but otherwise untouched, picked himself up, and remarked with profound contempt, "The dirty swine!"

Jim brought the horse out. It stood tamely enough to be saddled, with head drooping indifferently, and showed no deeper interest and no resentment over the operation of bridling, Jim talking all the time he worked, like the faker that he was, to draw off a too-close inspection of his wares.

Christopherus Columbus beckoned me and I went the round of the ship with him and others and his guest, this far-away son of Great India. So, presently, he was taken to view the horses and the cattle. Whoever hath seen lions brought to a court for show hath seen some shrinking from too-close and heard timorous asking if the bars be really strong. And the old, wild beasts at Rome for the games.