"At this party," persisted Arthur, "was a girl ... oh well, look it doesn't matter now. The whole place has gone up in smoke anyway ..."
"I wish you'd stop sulking about that bloody planet," said Ford. "Who was the lady?"
"Oh just somebody. Well alright, I wasn't doing very well with her. I'd been trying all evening. Hell, she was something though. Beautiful, charming, devastatingly intelligent, at last I'd got her to myself for a bit and was plying her with a bit of talk when this friend of yours barges up and says Hey doll, is this guy boring you? Why don't you talk to me instead? I'm from a different planet." I never saw her again."
"Zaphod?" exclaimed Ford.
"Yes," said Arthur, glaring at him and trying not to feel foolish. "He only had the two arms and the one head and he called himself Phil, but ..."
"But you must admit he did turn out to be from another planet," said Trillian wandering into sight at the other end of the bridge. She gave Arthur a pleasant smile which settled on him like a ton of bricks and then turned her attention to the ship's controls again.
There was silence for a few seconds, and then out of the scrambled mess of Arthur's brain crawled some words.