"Well, I figured out where the trouble is," Macintyre said gloomily, with the air of a man who knows just how he blew up the Earth—after it was too late.
"Let's hear it."
"Everybody took it for granted that we wanted all murder stopped. We figured the watchbirds would think as we do. We ought to have qualified the conditions."
"I've got an idea," Gelsen said, "that we'd have to know just why and what murder is, before we could qualify the conditions properly. And if we knew that, we wouldn't need the watchbirds."
"Oh, I don't know about that. They just have to be told that some things which look like murder are not murder."
"But why should they stop fisherman?" Gelsen asked.
"Why shouldn't they? Fish and animals are living organisms. We just don't think that killing them is murder."
The telephone rang. Gelsen glared at it and punched the intercom. "I told you no more calls, no matter what."
"This is from Washington," his secretary said. "I thought you'd—"
"Sorry." Gelsen picked up the telephone. "Yes. Certainly is a mess ... Have they? All right, I certainly will." He put down the telephone.