Severn, Ada, Nyna and Tennyson Clark arrive with their vertical smiles...
Meanwhile the bat is back at the Ringworld beach scarfing the neck of the lamb, wearing shades and hanging upside-down from a sunny-side up palm frond (with no egg on their face).
The smallest squidlet is farting bubbles in the tide-pool. Those nearby are fit to be tied. Most everybody else is just unfit.
The crowd at the bar is no longer three-deep, but too many of its members are lawyers for the ballerinas to be able to kick up their heels in the style to which we'd all like to become accustomed.
The musicians are fading, especially the ghost of Ed McCurdy, whose rich and almost furry baritone has lost its pear-shaped tones thanks to singing with a trio. The harpist is still going on and on, though.
The African Man uses his marvelous feet to bring the bat another hot whiskey, walking out in his tie-dyed socks onto the hot, hot beach. A strand of his wild hair blows in the zephyr over the ivory sands of the coast as he turns back, just in time for the empty glass, slipping from the bat's greasy claws, to miss him by millimeters. The sand may be hot but it's soft, so only the fall is broken, not the glass. After all, it isn't autumn on *this* beach.
It may be easy to fool some people but hot whiskey is not served in a mug...