 What does the encounter with Guy and Em tell the reader about the narrator?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction May 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The only kind of gag worth pulling, I always maintained, was a cosmic one—till I learned the Cosmos has a really nasty sense of humor! I unlocked the door, held it against her pushing and slipped out so that, for all her peering, she could see nothing. Yet I had always been so sure I could create them that I had been calling them volplas for ten years. I had called them volplas since the day old Nijinsky's elongated arms and his cousin's lateral skin folds had given me the idea of a flying mutant. Again in the laboratory, I entered the metabolic accelerator and withdrew the intravenous needles from my first volplas. The accelerator had forced them almost to adulthood in less than a month. It would be several hours before they would begin to move, to learn to feed and play, perhaps to learn to fly. Meanwhile, it was clear that here was no war of dominant mutations. I flipped a hamburger and a slice of onion onto a plate and picked up the ketchup and said, "I've reached the dangerous age." I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth and said aloud, "Yes, sir, the dangerous age. I kissed her until I heard rollerskates coming across the terrace from one direction and a horse galloping toward the terrace from the other direction.
 The narrator is so immersed in his own experiment that he loses sight of his peers' significant accomplishments.
 The narrator is more of an original prankster than a scientist.  The narrator does not understand the implications that launching Rocket Charlie will have on science.  The narrator intends to deter rather than advance science.  The narrator is so immersed in his own experiment that he loses sight of his peers' significant accomplishments.