"Well, I should hope so. I never told a lie in my life?"

The buzzer remained silent; Greenberg reflected that she must believe it. "I mean," he added, "that the court makes up its own mind. It does not allow a machine to do so for it."

"My father always said that gadgets like that were spawn of the devil. He said that an honest business man should not..."

"Please, Mrs. Donahue"

Mr. Beanfield whispered to her. Mrs. Donahue went on more quietly, "Well, there was that thing, that enormous beast kept by that boy next door. It was eating my rose bushes."

"And what did you do?"

"I didn't know what to do. I grabbed the first thing at hand... a broom, it was... and rushed out doors. The beast came charging at me and..."

Buzzzzzzz!

"Shall we go over that again, Mrs. Donahue?"

"Well... anyhow, I rushed at it and began to beat it on the head. It snapped at me. Those great teeth..."

Buzzzzz!

"Then what happened, Mrs. Donahue?"

"Well, it turned away, the cowardly thing, and ran out of my yard. I don't know where it went. But there was my lovely garden, just ruined." The needle quivered but the buzzer did not sound.

Greenberg turned to the lawyer. "Mr. Beanfield, have you examined the damage to Mrs. Donahue's garden?"

"Yes, your honor."

"Will you tell us the extent of the damage?"

Mr. Beanfield decided that he would rather lose a client than be buzzed in open court by that confounded toy. "Five bushes were eaten, your honor, in whole or in part. There was minor damage to the lawn and a hole made in an ornamental fence."

"Financial damage?"

Mr. Beanfield said carefully, "The amount we are suing for is before you, your honor."

"That is not responsive, Mr. Beanfield."

Mr. Beanfield shrugged mentally and struck Mrs. Donahue off his list of paying properties. "Oh, around a couple of hundred, your honor, in property damage. But the court should allow for inconvenience and mental anguish."

Mrs. Donahue yelped. "That's preposterous! My prize roses."

The needle jumped and fell back too quickly to work the buzzer. Greenberg said wearily, "What prizes, Mrs. Donahue?"

Her lawyer cut in, "They were right next to Mrs. Donahue's well-known champion plants. Her courageous action saved the more valuable bushes, I am happy to say."

"Is there more to add?"

"I think not. I have photographs, marked and identified, to offer."

"Very well."

Mrs. Donahue glared at her lawyer. "Well! I have something to add. There is one thing I insist on, absolutely insist on, and that is that that dangerous, blood-thirsty beast be destroyed!"

Greenberg turned to Beanfield. "Is that a formal prayer, counsellor? Or may we regard it as rhetoric?" Beanfield looked uncomfortable. "We have such a petition, your honor."

"The court will receive it."

Betty butted in with, "Hey, wait a minute! All Lummie did was eat a few of her measly old..."

"Later, Miss Sorenson."

"But..."

"Later, please. You will have your chance. The court is now of the opinion that it has all the pertinent facts. Does anyone have any new facts to bring out, or does anyone wish to question further any witness? Or bring forward another witness?"

"We do," Betty said at once.

"You do what?"

"We want to call a new witness."

"Very well. Do you have him here?"

"Yes, your honor. Just outside. Lummox."

Greenberg looked thoughtful. "Do I understand that you are proposing to put, uh, Lummox on the stand in his own defense?"

"Why not? He can talk."

A reporter turned suddenly to a colleague and whispered. to him, then hurried out of the room. Greenberg chewed his lip. "I know that," he admitted. "I exchanged a few words with him myself. But the ability to talk does not alone make a competent witness. A child may learn to talk, after a fashion, before it is a year old, but only rarely is a child of tender years... less than five, let us say... found competent to give testimony. The court takes judicial notice that members of nonhuman races... non-human in the biological sense... may give evidence. But nothing has been presented to show that this particular extra-terrestrial is competent."

John Thomas whispered worriedly to Betty, "Have you slipped your cams? There's no telling what Lummie would say."

"Hush!" She went on to Greenberg. "Look, Mr. Commissioner, you've said a fancy lot of words, but what do they mean? You are about to pass judgment on Lummox... and you won't even bother to ask him a question. You say he can't give competent evidence. Well, I've seen others around here who didn't do so well. I'll bet if you hook a truth meter to Lummie, it won't buzz. Sure, he did things he shouldn't have done. He ate some scrawny old rose bushes and he ate Mr. Ito's cabbages. What's horrible about that? When you were a kid, did you ever swipe a cookie when you thought nobody was looking?"

She took a deep breath. "Suppose when you swiped that cookie, somebody hit you in the face with a broom? Or fired a gun at you? Wouldn't you be scared? Wouldn't you run? Lummie is friendly. Everybody around here knows that... or at least if they don't they are stupider and more irresponsible than he is. But did anybody try to reason with him? Oh, no! They bullied him and fired off guns at him and scared him to death and chased him off bridges. You say Lummie is incompetent. Who is incompetent? All these people who were mean to him? Or Lummie? Now they want to kill him. If a little boy swiped a cookie, I suppose they'd chop his head off, just to be sure he wouldn't do it again. Is somebody crazy? What kind of a farce is this?"

She stopped, tears running down her cheeks. It was a talent which had been useful in school dramatics; to her own surprise she found that these tears were real.

"Are you through?" asked Greenberg.

"I guess so. For now, anyway?'

"I must say that you put it very movingly. But a court should not be swayed by emotion. Is it your theory that the major portion of the damage... let us say everything but the rose bushes and the cabbages... arose from improper acts of human beings and therefore cannot be charged to Lummox or his owner?"

"Figure it yourself, your honor. The tail generally follows the dog. Why not ask Lummie how it looked to him?"

"We'll get to that. On another issue: I cannot grant that your analogy is valid. We are dealing here, not with a little boy, but with an animal. If this court should order the destruction of this animal, it would not be in spirit of vengeance nor of punishment, for an animal is presumed not to understand such values. The purpose would be preventive, in order that a potential danger might not be allowed to develop into damage to life or limb or property. Your little boy can be restrained by the arms of his nurse... but we are dealing with a creature weighing several tons, capable of crushing a man with a careless step. There is no parallel in your cookie-stealing small boy."

"There isn't, huh? That little boy can grow up and wipe out a whole city by pushing one teeny little button. So off with his head before he grows up. Don't ask him why he took the cookie, don't ask him anything! He's a bad boy-chop his head off and save trouble."

Greenberg found himself again biting his lip. He said, "It is your wish that we examine Lummox?"

"I said so, didn't I?"

"I'm not sure what you said. The court will consider it."

Mr. Lombard said quickly, "Objection, your honor. If this extraordinary..."

"Hold your objection, please. Court will recess for ten minutes. All will remain." Greenberg got up and walked away. He took out a cigarette, found again that he had no light, stuck the pack back in his pocket.

Blast the girl! He had had it figured how to dispose of this case smoothly, with credit to the department and everybody satisfied... except the Stuart boy, but that could not be helped... the boy and this precocious preposterous young mammal who had him under her wing. And under her thumb, too, he added.