Read The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for Free Online Page A

Spencer.
    The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
has a few things to say on the subject of towels
.
    A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you—daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough
.
    More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a
strag
(strag: nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have “lost.” What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with
.
    Hence a phrase that has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in
“Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There’s a frood who really knows where his towel is.”
(Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)
    Nestling quietly on top of the towel in Ford Prefect’s satchel, the Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic began to wink more quickly. Miles above the surface of the planet the huge yellow somethings began to fan out. At Jodrell Bank, someone decided it was time for a nice relaxing cup of tea.
    “You got a towel with you?” said Ford suddenly to Arthur.
    Arthur, struggling through his third pint, looked round at him.
    “Why? What, no … should I have?” He had given up being surprised, there didn’t seem to be any point any longer.
    Ford clicked his tongue in irritation.
    “Drink up,” he urged.
    At that moment the dull sound of a rumbling crash from outside filtered through the low murmur of the pub, through the sound of the jukebox, through the sound of the man next to Ford hiccupping over the whisky Ford had eventually bought him.
    Arthur choked on his beer, leaped to his feet.
    “What’s that?” he yelped.
    “Don’t worry,” said Ford, “they haven’t started yet.”
    “Thank God for that,” said Arthur, and relaxed.
    “It’s probably just your house being knocked down,” said Ford, downing his last pint.
    “What?” shouted Arthur. Suddenly Ford’s spell was broken. Arthur looked wildly around him and ran to the window.
    “My God, they are! They’re knocking my house down. What the hell am I doing in the pub, Ford?”
    “It hardly makes any difference at this stage,” said Ford, “let them have their fun.”
    “Fun?” yelped Arthur. “Fun!” He quickly checked out the window again that they were talking about the same thing.
    “Damn their fun!” he hooted, and ran out of the pub furiously waving a nearly empty beer glass. He made no friends at all in the pub that lunchtime.
    “Stop, you vandals! You home wreckers!” bawled Arthur. “You half-crazed Visigoths, stop, will you!”
    Ford would have to go after him. Turning quickly to the barman he asked for four packets of peanuts.
    “There you are, sir,”