"As for the emergency powers," he added, "they are neither to be temporary nor limited."
Somebody wanted the floor to discuss the matter, with the declared hope that perhaps Barlow would modify his demands.
"You've got the proposition," Barlow said. "I'm not knocking off even ten per cent."
"But what if the Congress refuses, sir?" the President asked.
"Then you can stay up here at the Pole and try to work it out yourselves. I'll get what I want from the morons. A shrewd operator like me doesn't have to compromise; I haven't got a single competitor in this whole cockeyed moronic era."
Congress waived debate and voted by show of hands. Barlow won unanimously.
"You don't know how close you came to losing me," he said in his first official address to the joint Houses. "I'm not the boy to
