Free The Right to Arm Bears by Gordon R. Dickson Page B

the room's end, through the shifting bodies passing in and about the tables in the room, but the way was never clear long enough for him to get a good look.
    Suddenly, however, John dropped his mug with a bang on the table and sat bolt upright.
    "Hey!" he said, punching the Bluffer.
    The Bluffer took another large bite of meat.
    " Hey! " said John, punching harder.
    The Bluffer growled something unintelligible with his mouth full.
    "Look up!" said John. "Look over there! Quick!"
    The Hill Bluffer looked up, in the direction John was pointing. He did not seem disturbed to see a Hemnoid accompanied by a relatively short, plump Dilbian female, threading their way between the tables toward the enormous patriarch in the chair on the dais.
    The Bluffer swallowed.
    "Sure," he said casually. "That's that Fatty, Tark- ay . The one I was telling you about claims to be quite a scrapper back on his home world?" The Bluffer discovered he needed to dispose of one more swallow, and did so. He pointed with a large finger, while picking up a large chunk of bread with his other hand. "That's Boy Is She Built with him."
    "Boy Is She Built?" John stared.
    "That's what they all say," muttered the Bluffer through a mouthful of bread. "Like `em a little skinnier, myself."
    "I mean—" said John. "What's she doing here? Let's go get her and make her tell us about Greasy Face, and if Greasy Face is all right—"
    "Now, there you go," said the Bluffer.
    "Go?" John turned to blink at him.
    "Starting trouble."
    "Starting trouble?"
    "Didn't," said the Bluffer, "I just finish telling you this here's treaty ground? Man's got to be polite on treaty ground. Everybody, even Shorties got to respect the rules."
    John fell silent. The Bluffer went back to his eating. John watched the Hemnoid, Tark- ay , and Boy Is She Built who proceeded up to the dais, sat down; and evidently fell into a friendly conversation with the oversize patriarch seated there.
    John wished he could hear what they were saying.
    He looked over at the Bluffer, eating away; and began to try to evolve some kind of scheme which would inveigle the Bluffer into taking him over to meet the giant Dilbian, in turn. And as soon as the Bluffer was finished, John took a cautious sip of beer and went to work.
    "Who did you say is that man down in the chair at the end?" he asked.
    "Why, don't you know? No, I guess you don't," said the Bluffer. "Why, that's One Man, Half-Pint. This here's all his, at Sour Ford."
    "Quite a man," said John.
    "You can say that," replied the Bluffer judiciously, draining the last drops from his beer mug.
    "I'd like to meet a man like that," said John. "Now, back home—"
    "That's good," said the Bluffer, standing up. "Because the waitress passed word I was to bring you over, soon as we were through eating. Come on, Half-Pint."
    He headed off between the tables. John shook his head ruefully and followed. The next time, he though, I'll ask first and scheme afterwards.
    When they got close to the individual in the chair, John discovered that sometime during their passage across the room, the Hemnoid and Boy Is She Built had disappeared. He did not have much opportunity to wonder about this, however; because his attention was immediately completely taken up by the Dilbian he was about to meet. One Man was that sort of a being.
    It was definitely disconcerting, after John had spent a couple of days adjusting to the idea of Dilbian size, to have that adjustment knocked for a fresh row of pins. He was rather like a man who having gotten used to measuring with a yardstick instead of a foot-rule, suddenly finds the yardstick replaced by a fathom line. And he, himself as a fraction of that measurement getting smaller and smaller.
    John had accustomed himself to standing about armpit high on the ordinary male Dilbian. Now, here along came a specimen on which John could hardly hope to stand more than midrib height. John's reaction was rather like Gulliver's with the Brobdingnagians. He