Astounding Science Fiction (British Edition) — page 125: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Me AND AND Trlé FLAPJACK MARTIANS By MACK REYNOLDS and FREDRIC BROWN Telepathy would, if nothing else, aid greatly in settling questions of relative intelligence of different species . . . Illustrated by Pawelka Wanta hear how Flapjack saved the world from the Martians, huh? All right, partner. It happened on the edge of the Mojave, just south of Death Valley. Me and Flapjack was .. . “Flapjack,” I told him complain- ingly, “you ain’t worth a whoop no more since you done got rich. You're too all-fired proud these days to be ploddin’ through the desert doing an honest day’s work. Ain’t yuh?” Flapjack didn’t answer. He ignored me and looked ahead of him dis- gustedly at the sand, the dust, the little clumps of cactus. He didn’t have to answer; just his whole attitude made it plenty clear he wished we was back in Crucero, or maybe up in Bishop. I frowned at him. “Sometimes,” I told him, “I think you was just never cut out for this, Flapjack. Oh, sure, you’ve spent most of your life in the desert and the mountains, just like I spent most of mine. And maybe you know ’em better than I do; I gotta admit it was you and not me that stumbled on that there last strike we made. But I still don’t think you like the desert and the hills. “I think I got reason for sayin’ that, Flapjack. It’s the way you’ve acted ever since we got a few dollars in the poke from that strike. Now you don’t have to look hurt like that. You know the way you been carryin’ on ever since we got money in the bank. A real caution. Why as soon as we get into Bishop or maybe Needles, what do you do? You make a beeline for the nearest saloon, that’s what you do, Gotta let everybody in town know we got money to spend.” Flapjack yawned and kicked up the dust underfoot. He didn’t mind my talking on and on, because you get to where you kind of like to hear some- body’s voice out in the desert, but he wasn’t paying no real attention to what I was saying. But I didn’t let that stop me. I laid it into him. I said, “And you ain’t satisfied to spend our money in just one bar, neither. The minute you finish off a gallon of beer in one saloon, you head for the next. You're gettin’ yourself talked about, Flapjack. But that don’t make no difference to you. In fact, like I said, you’re gettin’ yourself so all-fired proud you don’t care what anybody says about you. “It ain’t as though we got so much money we can retire. If we tried livin’ in town permanentlike, we'd be flat broke in no time. Especially with the way you hang around in saloons and , guzzle beer. Well, at least you don’t Eomichooksico im