"You think," said the Old Man caustically, "awful loud. Sparks, this
is Mr. Thaxton, our special guest. Mr. Thaxton, be pleased to meet our
radio operator."
This Thaxton was a queer-looking duck. He wasn't more than five foot
two, or maybe three. He wore a shock of bristling, carroty hair over a
forehead that bulged like a sponge in a Swedish bath. His eyes stuck
out so far that he could have hung pictures on them, and his legs
looked like a brace of parentheses hunting for a descriptive phrase.
We clenched mitts and glims at the same time. The handshake was what I
had expected from the looks of him: wet towels in the sunset. But when
his eyes met mine, I got the funniest darn sensation. It was something
like an electric shock, only not quite.
It was something like having your cerebellum run through a wringer,
only not quite. It was a little like having tiny fingers play tag in
the area of your gray-matter. Only that wasn't it, either.