"Like the short snorters in the war," Mr. Mason, the hotel manager, said. "You remember them, Mr. Daniels? Where people got famous signatures on five and ten and twenty-dollar bills and exchanged them and what not, and they called them short snorters?" "I remember," Fred Daniels said. "Something like that." "Five djinos on Venus," Mr. Steariot said, signing his name with a flourish, "is worth about twenty dollars here on Earth. No official rate of exchange, of course, but from what I've seen, that's about what I'd judge. Here you go." He handed the bill over. "Well, wait, then," Fred Daniels said. "I ought to sign one of _our_ bills for _you_." "Ah, no need for that," Mr. Steariot said. "No doubt you need twenty dollars worse than I need five djinos." "Don't be ridiculous," Fred said, a little stiffly; and, by now committed, he went into his wallet and came out with a twenty dollar bill. He signed his name to it, using Mr. Steariot's fountain pen. "Wonderful," Mr. Steariot said. "How nice to have met you both." * * * * * "I feel very badly about this," Mr. Mason, the hotel manager, said to Fred and Alice. The three of them were on the porch outside. "This short snorter business always seems to happen whenever I introduce Mr. Steariot to anyone. Dr. Phelps at the Institute gave him fifty dollars. Can you imagine that?" "It's interesting in its way," Fred said. "It just occurred to me: Mr. Steariot can spend Earth money here, but we can't spend Venus money." "That's true," Mr. Mason said. "On the other hand, Mr. Steariot has never once, to my knowledge, been the one to bring up the subject. I think it's quite painful to him, really. But the same thing inevitably occurs to everybody he meets. You know, let's see the color of your money. I guess people are pretty much the same everywhere--that is, everywhere on _Earth_. They judge everything in terms of money, including whether you've even been born on Earth! 'Let's see your money,' they say to Mr. Steariot, and out he comes with one of those damn five-djino bills, and we're off." "You know," Alice Daniels said thoughtfully, "in a way it's a lesson. Isn't it, Fred? I mean, everybody is money conscious. Maybe too much so. I'm not sorry it cost us twenty dollars to meet Mr. Steariot." "You may be right," Fred said to her. "You may be right. Who knows, some day this five-djino bill may be a very valuable--" "There you go again," Alice cut in. "Always putting it in terms of money." "But _you're_ the one," Fred said, "who thought to ask him about it in the first place."