"Yes sir," said the old man coldly, "thank you very much. Well, goodbye Earthman," he said to Arthur, "hope the lifestyle comes together." With a brief nod to the rest of the company he turned and walked sadly out of the room.
Arthur stared after him not knowing what to say.
"Now," said Benji mouse, "to business."Ford and Zaphod clinked their glasses together.
"To business!" they said.
"I beg your pardon?" said Benji.
Ford looked round.
"Sorry, I thought you were proposing a toast," he said.
The two mice scuttled impatiently around in their glass transports. Finally they composed themselves, and Benji moved forward to address Arthur. + "Now, Earth creature," he said, "the situation we have in effect is this. We have, as you know, been more or less running your planet for the last ten million years in order to find this wretched thing called the Ultimate Question."
"Why?" said Arthur, sharply.
"No — we already thought of that one," said Frankie interrupting, "but it doesn't fit the answer. Why? — Forty-Two ... you see, it doesn't work."
"No," said Arthur, "I mean why have you been doing it?"
"Oh, I see," said Frankie. "Well, eventually just habit I think, to be brutally honest. And this is more or less the point — we're sick to the teeth with the whole thing, and the prospect of doing it all over again on account of those whinnet-ridden Vogons quite frankly gives me the screaming heeby jeebies, you know what I mean? It was by the merest lucky chance that Benji and I finished our particular job and left the planet early for a quick holiday, and have since manipulated our way back to Magrathea by the good offices of your friends."
"Magrathea is a gateway back to our own dimension," put in Benji.
"Since when," continued his murine colleague, "we have had an offer of a quite enormously fat contract to do the 5D chat show and lecture circuit back in our own dimensional neck of the woods, and we're very much inclined to take it.""I would, wouldn't you Ford?" said Zaphod promptingly.
"Oh yes," said Ford, "jump at it, like a shot."Arthur glanced at them, wondering what all this was leading up to."But we've got to have a product you see," said Frankie, "I mean ideally we still need the Ultimate Question in some form or other." Zaphod leaned forward to Arthur.