Sometimes the very best thing you can do is to lose. The cholera germ, for instance, asks nothing better than that it be swallowed alive.......

hen I came into the control room the Captain looked up from a set of charts at me. He stood up and gave me a salute and I returned it, not making a ceremony out of it. "Half an hour to landing, sir," he said. That irritated me. It always irritates me. "I'm not an officer," I said. "I'm not even an enlisted man." He nodded, too quickly. "Yes, Mr. Carboy," he said. "Sorry." I sighed. "If you want to salute," I told him, "if it makes you happier to salute, you go right ahead. But don't call me 'Sir