The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy | Page 3

climbing roses, but he wanted
axes. He didn't know why { he just liked axes. He
ushed hotly under the
derisive grins of the bulldozer drivers. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, but it was equally uncomfortable
on each. Obviously somebody had been appallingly incompetent and he
hoped to God it wasn't him. Mr. Prosser said: "You were quite entitled to make any suggestions or
protests at the appropriate time you know." "Appropriate time?" hooted Arthur. "Appropriate time? The rst I
knew about it was when a workman arrived at my home yesterday. I asked
him if he'd come to clean the windows and he said no he'd come to demolish
the house. He didn't tell me straight away of course. Oh no. First he wiped
a couple of windows and charged me a ver. Then he told me." "But Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning oce
for the last nine month."
"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yes-
terday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention
to them had you? I mean like actually telling anybody or anything." "But the plans were on display . . . "
"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to nd them."
"That's the display department."
6

"With a
ashlight."
"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."
"So had the stairs."
"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"
"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a
locked ling cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door
saying Beware of the Leopard."
A cloud passed overhead. It cast a shadow over Arthur Dent as he lay
propped up on his elbow in the cold mud. It cast a shadow over Arthur
Dent's house. Mr. Prosser frowned at it. "It's not as if it's a particularly nice house," he said.
"I'm sorry, but I happen to like it."
"You'll like the bypass."
"Oh shut up," said Arthur Dent. "Shut up and go away, and take your
bloody bypass with you. You haven't got a leg to stand on and you know
it."
Mr. Prosser's mouth opened and closed a couple of times while his mind
was for a moment lled with inexplicable but terribly attractive visions of
Arthur Dent's house being consumed with re and Arthur himself running
screaming from the blazing ruin with at least three hefty spears protruding
from his back. Mr. Prosser was often bothered with visions like these and
they made him feel very nervous. He stuttered for a moment and then pulled
himself together. "Mr. Dent," he said.
"Hello? Yes?" said Arthur.
"Some factual information for you. Have you any idea how much damage
that bulldozer would suer if I just let it roll straight over you?" "How much?" said Arthur.
"None at all," said Mr. Prosser, and stormed nervously o wondering
why his brain was lled with a thousand hairy horsemen all shouting at him.
By a curious coincidence, "None at all" is exactly how much suspicion
the ape-descendant Arthur Dent had that one of his closest friends was not
descended from an ape, but was in fact from a small planet in the vicinity of
Betelgeuse and not from Guildford as he usually claimed. Arthur Dent had never, ever suspected this.
This friend of his had rst arrived on the planet some fteen Earth years
previously, and he had worked hard to blend himself into Earth society {
with, it must be said, some success. For instance he had spent those fteen
years pretending to be an out of work actor, which was plausible enough.
7

He had made one careless blunder though, because he had skimped a bit
on his preparatory research. The information he had gathered had led him
to choose the name "Ford Prefect" as being nicely inconspicuous.
He was not conspicuously tall, his features were striking but not conspic-
uously handsome. His hair was wiry and gingerish and brushed backwards
from the temples. His skin seemed to be pulled backwards from the nose.
There was something very slightly odd about him, but it was dicult to say
what it was. Perhaps it was that his eyes didn't blink often enough and
when you talked to him for any length of time your eyes began involuntarily
to water on his behalf. Perhaps it was that he smiled slightly too broadly
and gave people the unnerving impression that he was about to go for their
neck.
He struck most of the friends he had made on Earth as an eccentric, but
a harmless one { an unruly boozer with some oddish habits. For instance he
would often gatecrash university parties, get badly drunk and start making
fun of any astrophysicist he could nd till he got thrown out.
Sometimes he would get seized with oddly distracted moods and stare
into the sky as if hypnotized until someone asked him what he was doing.
Then he would start guiltily for a moment, relax and grin. "Oh, just looking for
ying saucers," he would joke and everyone would
laugh and ask him what