"Hail to thee, O visitor from the stars," Miss Snow said in Fizbian. "May thy sojourn upon Earth be an incessant delight and may peace and plenty shower their gifts in abundance upon thee." Tarb put her hand to her aching head. "I'm very glad to meet you," she said, glad she did not have to get up to make the ritual _entrechats_. "Miss Snow is my right foot," Stet said, "but I'm going to be noble and let her act as your secretary until you can learn to operate a typewriter." "Secretary? Typewriter?" "Well, you see, there are no scriptos or superscriptos on Earth and we can't import any from Home because the natives--" Miss Snow smiled--"don't have the right kind of power here to run psychic installations. All prosifying has to be done directly on prosifying machines or--" he paused--"by foot." "Catch her!" Miss Snow exclaimed in Terran. Everything had gone maroon for Tarb again. As she fell, she could hear a sudden thump. It was, she later discovered, Drosmig falling off his perch again--the result of insecure grip, she was given to understand, rather than excessive empathy. * * * * * "I didn't mean, of course, to give you the impression that we actually produce the individual copies of the papers ourselves," Stet explained over the dinner table that night. "We have native printers who do that. They've turned out some really remarkable Fizbian type fonts." "Very clever of them," Tarb said, knowing that was what she was expected to say. She glanced around the restaurant. In their low-cut evening garments, the Terrestrial females looked much less Fizboid than they had during the day. All that naked-looking skin; one would think they'd want to cover it. Probably they were sick with jealousy of her beautiful rose-colored down--what they could see of it, anyway. "Of course, our real problem is getting proofreaders. The proofing machines won't operate here either, of course, and so we need human personnel. But what Fizbian would do such degrading work? We had thought of convict labor, but--" "Why mustn't I take off my wrap?" Tarb interrupted. "No one else is wearing one." Stet coughed. "You'll feel much less self-conscious about your wings if you keep it on. And try not to use your feet so conspicuously. I'm sure everyone understands you need them to eat with, but--" "But I'm not in the least self-conscious about my wings. On Fizbus, they were considered rather nice-looking, if I do say so myself." "It's better," he said firmly, "not to emphasize the differences between the natives and ourselves. You didn't object to wearing a Terrestrial costume, did you?" "No, I realize I must make some concessions to native prudery, but--" "Matter of fact, I've been thinking it would be a good idea for you to wear a stole or a cape or something in the daytime when you go to and from the office. You wouldn't want to make yourself or the _Times_ conspicuous, I'm sure.... No, waiter, no coffee. We'll take champagne."