A rousing adventure story for boys by Bret Dawson.

Chet Price stood ramrod straight and tried not to look flustered. It wasn't easy. The fifteen-year-old space detective liked to think of himself as a calm and steady thinker, as someone who let his training, not his emotions, take the lead in stressful situations.

Yet here he was, alone with a space dame he'd only just met, promising to help her with a "personal" problem, and he hadn't even heard the details of her case yet!

Also, he'd forgotten his trousers at the space haberdashery of Jackie Greenwood, which was distracting to say the least. Particularly for the space dame.

"My goodness," she exclaimed. "Is that real?"

"Uh," began Chet, "well, of course it's real. Right before your eyes, it exists as surely as anything else in this galaxy. It has form and shape and function."

"Oh," said the space dame.

"It is not imaginary," Chet concluded, "so therefore it is real."

"Look," the space dame protested, "I wasn't looking for a lesson in grade-school space philosophy. I understand that it's real in the physical-existence v. mental-existence sense. What I was really asking was whether it is entirely natural, or whether it owes its distinctive appearance to a medical or surgical or technological innovation."

Chet was quiet for a moment.

"Beg pardon?" he asked.

"Pardon granted," said the space dame.

"Thanks," said Chet.

* * *

Next: The shocking conclusion!