Pan Satyrus sat on his heels and slowly groomed his chest with his fingernails. He turned to his friends. "That redhead used the most awful perfume. I don't think I'll ever get it off me, " He turned back. "Mr. MacMahon, there was something I was going to sign?"
Flush-faced, Mr. MacMahon lowered his head and looked at the roadway. "A contract with the broadcasting company, sir. Television."
Pan Satyrus scratched at his head vigorously. "Like you, Mr. MacMahon, I have never practiced law."
"1 studied it."
"Ah, so. Then, will you please tell me — how can a seven and a half year old legal human being sign a valid contract?"
"This he didn't get from TV," Happy said.
Over his shoulder, Pan said, "A law student from Fordham. He was my mother's night attendant for a while. More of a watchman than a keeper, really, he just sat in front of the cage studying all night"
Mr. MacMahon said, "Well, your guardian—"
“Go on.”
“A friend of yours. Bill Dunham." The words came out in a rush.
Pan Satyrus turned his back on Mr. MacMahon and faced Happy and Ape. "Do I have a friend named Bill Dunham?"
"I know the name," Happy said. "Wait a minute. That was the monk — sorry, the guy — who interviewed you on the pier this morning."
"No friend," Pan said.
"Oh. I see," MacMahon said. Then suddenly his face relaxed, he was for a moment almost soft looking. "Listen, I'm a guy under orders. Bring Pan Satyrus to New York — or else."
"Or else you stop eating?" Pan asked.
Mr. MacMahon said nothing.
"It's getting chilly," Pan went on. "Chimpanzees catch cold very easily, though not so easily as other primates. When you tried to starve me, it was to find out how to drive a spaceship at superluminous speeds. Doesn't the government care about that any more?"
Mr. MacMahon didn't say anything.
Surprisingly, it was Ape who came up with the right answer. "How much this TV outfit gonna pay Pan?"
"Ten thousand a week,".
Ape shoved his chief's cap straight on his head. "It figgers. Nobody can do nothing to a guy makes ten grand a week."
"And what do I do for it?" Pan suddenly thundered. "Catch peanuts thrown by a little blonde darling? Pretend to fall in love with an actress with an inflated mammary system? Or be the lovable father of a family of little chimps, played by stump-tailed macaques?"
"I see you have watched television," Mr. MacMahon said.
"If they give you anything to do," Happy said, "you don't want to do, act stupid."
One fist on the road, Pan swivelled around to face him. "Do you want me to do this, Happy? Your?
"Chimp, I'd like to once be able to say I had a friend who made ten grand a week. Only, I guess, being able to say I had one who turned down ten grand a week, that's okay, too. The point is, Pan, what else? We're on this road, and no place to go, no way to get out. And they're gonna put up a bronze plate, in the Primate House where you and these rhesuses were kids together."
Ape said, "My old mother — she said she was my aunt, on account of she was never married, but I know better — she used to tell me what curiosity done to a cat, Happy."
Pan said, "A little moment of silence by the cage where I was born — alone except for my two friends — a pause to recall happy, baby memories — ah, yes."
"You've got the voice for television," Mr. MacMahon said, briskly. "Let's go."
CHAPTER TWELVE
They make a great deal of noise. especially when provoked by other monkeys.
This is Bill Dunham, my friends, and in a minute I'm going to have to turn the microphone over to my friend and colleague, Iggie Napoli— you there, Iggie? — and become a participant in these great stirring events.
I'm sorry we didn't get a better picture of the parade from City Hall to here at the Court House, but I've never seen so much ticker tape and waste-paper in my life. You know, that's a fact, they call it a ticker-tape parade, but the people in the offices here in downtown Manhattan don't just drop ticker tape — they empty their wastebaskets, and until you've been conked by an old typewriter ribbon dropped from thirty stories, you don't know what TV coverage is, friends.
At least since the ballpoint pen, we don't get bombarded with nearly as many empty ink bottles as we used to.
Now we're approaching the court, and I can see Judge Manton out on the white marble steps to greet us. Our other camera will show you that, there it is, and now back to us and Pan Satyrus here on the seat beside me. How does it feel to be about to become a legal human being?
Well, if you don't feel like talking, Pan, how about a smile for the camera? No. I guess this is a pretty solemn moment, for old Pan. That's his name, you know, he does not like to be called Mem, skipper of the Mem-sahib.
This is Iggie Napoli, good people, on the steps of the Court House, and the man you see in between us and the approaching motorcade is Judge Paul Manton, who is going to grant Pan Satyrus his legal humanship.
We were cut off from inside the limousine, but that was to be expected, the engineers tell me that working down in these man-made canyons of steel and concrete — ferro-concrete they say in England — the video waves get mighty tricky. Audio, too, I guess, because it sounded like the voice of Bill Dunham, my old friend and colleague, faded out on us. And that's a voice we've all grown to know and love in the many, many years Bill Dunham has been coming to us over the air waves. I don't know how long Bill has been talking to the American people, but I wouldn't be surprised if he'd carried his microphone to Grant at Richmond."
Standing in front of me is Judge Paul Manton, of the sovereign state of New York, the man who is going to grant old Mem his legal humanity. That right, Judge? I got the right language there?
"I think just plain citizenship would cover it, Mr. Napoli. The mayor has already made Mem an honorary citizen of New York, but this is the legal process that confirms it. Of course, you understand, his age makes it advisable that—"
Excuse me, Judge. The limousine is here, and Patrolman Hugh Callahan, oldest active patrolman on the New York Police Force, New York's finest, is about to open the door.
That is Master Chief Bates of the U.S. Navy getting out and smiling — and looking into our camera. And that is Radioman First Class Michael Bronstein right behind him. Now comes old Mem, the pilot of the Mem-sahib.
Radio Control here in Network City. Our remote unit at the Court House seems to be cut off, and while they get back on the air, let me fill you in on a little of the background of this great ape who is about to become a great American. Great ape is right, for Mem is a chimpanzee who…
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Even the dumbest chimpanzee could tell the difference between "real money" and counterfeit coinage.
The Illustrated Library of the Natural Sciences,
"You shouldn't a done it, Pan," Ape said. "That Network Company ain't gonna love you. First you knock out their top spieler, and then you tear the lid off their camera outfit. It ain't nice."
"I don't like being called Mem," Pan said simply. He set down the judge he was carrying, and asked, "Can you walk now, Mr. Justice?"
"Yes. I think so. I. this is contempt of court, sir."
"Just call me Pan. Oh, Dr. Bedoian." The doctor hurried forward. "Yes, Pan?" "See if the judge needs your services." "No, no, I'm quite all right," the judge said. "These are my chambers here. The actual ceremony is going to take place in the courtroom, of course, but I thought we could get the preliminaries over with. If you'll just have a seat, Mr. Pan."