Cliff grunted, poking around in a bag for the bottle of cognac he couldn't remember where he had packed. "Huh!" he said. "The next time you write her you might mention the fact that both of them are continually proposing to you and you brush it all off as a big joke." "Huh, indeed!" Isobel answered him. "Proposing, or propositioning? If either of you two Romeos ever rattle the doorknob of my room at night again, you're apt to get a bullet through it." Jake winced. "Wasn't me. Look at my gray hair, Isobel. I'm old enough to be your daddy." "Sugar daddy, I suppose," she said mockingly. "Wasn't me either," Cliff said, criss-crossing his heart and pointing upward. "Huh!" said Isobel again, but she was really in no mood for their usual banter. "Listen," she said, "what're we accomplishing with all this masquerade?" Cliff had found the French brandy. He poured three stiff ones and handed drinks to Isobel and Jake. He knew he wasn't telling her anything, but he said, "We're a king-size rumor campaign, that's what we are. We're breaking down institutions the sneaky way." He added reflectively. "A kinder way, though, than some." "But this ... what did you call it earlier, Jake?... this Cinderella act I go through perpetually. What good does it do, really? I contact only a few hundreds of people at most. And there are millions here in Mali alone." "There are other teams, too," Jake said mildly. "Several hundreds of us doing one thing or another." "A drop in the bucket," Isobel said, her piquant sepian face registering weariness. Cliff sipped his brandy, shaking his big head even as he did so. "No," he said. "It's a king-size rumor campaign and it's amazing how effective they can be. Remember the original dirty-rumor campaigns back in the States? Suppose two laundry firms were competing. One of them, with a manager on the conscience-less side, would hire two or three professional rumor spreaders. They'd go around dropping into bars, barber shops, pool rooms. Sooner or later, they'd get a chance to drop some line such as _did you hear about them discovering that two lepers worked at the Royal Laundry_? You can imagine the barbers, the bartenders, and such professional gossips, passing on the good word." Isobel laughed, but unhappily. "I don't recognize myself in the description."