Raych looked at Hari Seldon after the two politicians had gone and fingered his mustache. It gave him satisfaction to stroke it. Here in the Streeling Sector¹, some men wore mustaches, but they were usually thin despicable things of uncertain color-thin despicable things, even if dark. Most men did not wear them at all and suffered with naked upper lips. Seldon didn't, for instance, and that was just as well. With his color of hair, a mustache would have been a travesty².
    He watched Seldon closely, waiting for him to cease being lost in thought, and then found he could wait no longer.
    "Dad?" he said.
    Seldon looked up and said, "What?" He sounded a little annoyed at having his thoughts interrupted, Raych decided³.
    Raych said, "I don't think it was right for you to see those two guys."
    "Oh? Why not?"
    "Well, the thin guy, whatever his name is, was the guy you made trouble for at the Field. He can't have liked it."
    "But he apologized."
    "He didn't mean it. But the other guy, Joranum-he can be dangerous. What if they had had weapons?"
    "What? Here in the University? In my office? Of course not. This isn't Billibotton. Besides, if they had tried anything, I could have handled both of them together. Easily."
    "I don't know, Dad," said Raych dubiously⁴. "You're getting-"
    "Don't say it, you ungrateful monster," said Seldon, lifting an admonishing⁵ finger. `You'll sound just like your mother and I have enough of that from her. I am not getting old-or, at least, not that old. Besides, you were with me and you're almost as skilled a Twister as I am."
    Raych's nose wrinkled. "Twisting ain't much good." (It was no use. Raych heard himself speak and knew that, even eight years out of the morass⁶ of Dahl, he still slipped into using the Dahlite accent that marked him firmly as a member of the lower class. And he was short, too, to the point where he sometimes felt

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