So I tore the sealed band off the second notebook and read through it. I was to wear the local costume on New Texas. That was something unusual; even in the Hooligan Diplomats, we leaned over backward in wearing Terran costume to distinguish ourselves from the people among whom we worked. I was further advised to start wearing the high boots immediately, on shipboard, to accustom myself to the heels. These, I was informed, were traditional. They had served a useful purpose, in the early days on Terran Texas, when all travel had been on horseback. On horseless and mechanized New Texas, they were a useless but venerated part of the cultural heritage. There were bits of advice about the hat, and the trousers, which for some obscure reason were known as Levis. And I was informed, as an order, that I was to wear the belt and the pistols at all times outside the Embassy itself. That was all of the second notebook. The two notebooks, plus my conversation with Ghopal, Klueng and Natalenko, completed my briefing for my new post. I slid off my shoes and pulled on a pair of boots. They fitted perfectly. Evidently I had been tapped for this job as soon as word of Silas Cumshaw's death had reached Luna and there must have been some fantastic hurrying to get my outfit ready. I didn't like that any too well, and I liked the order to carry the pistols even less. Not that I had any objection to carrying weapons, _per se_: I had been born and raised on Theta Virgo IV, where the children aren't allowed outside the house unattended until they've learned to shoot. But I did have strenuous objections to being sent, virtually ignorant of local customs, on a mission where I was ordered to commit deliberate provocation of the local government, immediately on the heels of my predecessor's violent death. The author of _Probable Future Courses of Solar League Diplomacy_ had recommended the use of provocation to justify conquest. If the New Texans murdered two Solar League Ambassadors in a row, nobody would blame the League for moving in with a space-fleet and an army.... I was beginning to understand how Doctor Guillotin must have felt while his neck was being shoved into his own invention. I looked again at the notebooks, each marked in red: _Familiarize yourself with contents and burn or disintegrate._ I'd have to do that, of course. There were a few non-humans and a lot of non-League people aboard this ship. I couldn't let any of them find out what we considered a full briefing for a new Ambassador. So I wrapped them in the original package and went down to the lower passenger zone, where I found the ship's third officer. I told him that I had some secret diplomatic matter to be destroyed and he took me to the engine room. I shoved the package into one of the mass-energy convertors and watched it resolve itself into its constituent protons, neutrons and electrons. On the way back, I stopped in at the ship's bar.