Doran squinted through cigarette smoke. "You are interesting me strangely, my friend. Say on." "No." Matheny realized his head was a bit smoky. The walls of the booth seemed odd, somehow. They were just leatheroid walls, but they had an odd quality. "No, sorry, Gus," he said. "I spoke too much." "Okay. Forget it. I do not like a man that pries. But look, let's bomb out of here, how about it? Go have a little fun." "By all means." Matheny disposed of his last beer. "I could use some gaiety." "You have come to the right town then. But let us get you a hotel room first and some more up-to-date clothes." "_Allez_," said Matheny. "If I don't mean _allons_, or maybe _alors_." The drop down to cab-ramp level and the short ride afterward sobered him; the room rate at the Jupiter-Astoria sobered him still more. _Oh, well_, he thought, _if I succeed in this job, no one at home will quibble._ And the chamber to which he and Doran were shown was spectacular enough, with a pneumo direct to the bar and a full-wall transparency to show the vertical incandescence of the towers. "Whoof!" Matheny sat down. The chair slithered sensuously about his contours. He jumped. "What the dusty hell--Oh." He tried to grin, but his face burned. "I see." "That is a sexy type of furniture, all right," agreed Doran. He lowered himself into another chair, cocked his feet on the 3-D and waved a cigarette. "Which speaking of, what say we get some girls? It is not too late to catch them at home. A date here will usually start around 2100 hours earliest." "What?" "You know. Dames. Like a certain blonde warhead with twin radar and swivel mounting, and she just loves exotics. Such as you." "Me?" Matheny heard his voice climb to a schoolboy squeak. "Me? Exotic? Why, I'm just a little college professor. I g-g-g, that is--" His tongue got stuck on his palate. He pulled it loose and moistened uncertain lips. "You are from Mars. Okay? So you fought bushcats barehanded in an abandoned canal." "What's a bushcat? And we don't have canals. The evaporation rate--" "Look, Pete," said Doran patiently. "She don't have to know that, does she?" "Well--well, no. I guess not No." "Let's order you some clothes on the pneumo," said Doran. "I recommend you buy from Schwartzherz. Everybody knows he is expensive." * * * * * While Matheny jittered about, shaving and showering and struggling with his new raiment, Doran kept him supplied with akvavit and beer. "You said one thing, Pete," Doran remarked. "About needing a slipstring. A con man, you would call it." "Forget that. Please. I spoke out of turn." "Well, you see, maybe a man like that is just what Mars does need. And maybe I have got a few contacts." "What?" Matheny gaped out of the bathroom.