I cut off. McCleary had thrown a couple of pasteboards on the desk and I picked them up. The printing on it was like you see on a Pullman ticket. It said something about a roomette, first-class passage on the _Martian Prince_, for $154.75, and there was even a place where they had the tax figured. In two blanks at the top of the ticket, they had it filled out to _E. C. McCleary and wife_. The bottom half was torn off, just like they do with train tickets. "Very clever," I said, "but you shouldn't have gone to all that trouble to have these printed up." McCleary scowled and dropped a little bunch of kodachrome slides on the desk. I took one and held it up to the light. It showed Mac and his wife mounted on something that looked like a cross between a camel and a zebra. They were at the top of a sand dune and in the distance you could see the towers of a city. The funny thing was the towers looked a little--but not much--like minarets and the sand dunes were colored a beautiful pink. I passed it on to Donley and Young and started leafing through the rest. They were beautiful slides. McCleary and spouse in front of various structures in a delicately tinted marble and crystal city. McCleary in a pink-and-black boat on a canal that looked as wide as the Mississippi. McCleary standing on a strangely carved sandstone parapet, admiring a sunset caused by a sun looking half as big as ours. And everywhere were the dunes of pink sand. "Pictures can be faked, Mac," I said. He looked hurt and got some things out of his desk--a sateen pillow with scenes like those on his snapshots, an urn filled with pink sand, a tiny boat like a gondola, only different, a letter opener made out of peculiar bubbly pink glass. They were all stamped "Souvenir of Mars" and that kind of junk you don't have made up for a gag. I know mass-produced articles when I see them. "We couldn't afford the first-class tour," McCleary said expansively, "but I figure we can cover that next year." He turned to me puzzledly. "I asked the passenger agent about the _Princess of Mars_ and he said he had never heard of the ship. And it's Mars City, not Marsport. Couldn't understand how you made a mistake." "It was easy," I said weakly. I pointed to the pasteboard ducats. "Where'd you get these, Mac?" He waved generously in the direction of downtown. "Like you said, there's a couple of agencies downtown...." * * * * * You know, sometimes I think we misjudged McCleary. It takes a while to get to know a guy like Mac. Maybe his Louie _is_ brighter than Johnny, and maybe his chugmobile _is_ something terrific. For the last few years, all on account of Mac, my two weeks in August have really been well spent Beautiful! Why, from Mars City you can see low-slung mountains in the distance and dunes of soft, red sand stretching out to them. And the sunsets when you're standing on the parapets of that delicate crystal city.... And, man, fishing in the Grand Canal....