Stranger in a Strange Land

chance to be paid a double sawbuck for lookin'-when maybe they got one just as good or better at home, nekkid anytime they like. So he don't see one and he don't get paid-and sill we send him out happy.
                "What else does a chump want? Mystery! He wants to think that the world is a romantic place when he knows damn well it ain't. That's your job . . . only you ain't learned how. Shucks, son, even the marks know that your tricks are fake . . . only they'd like to believe they're real, and it's up to you to help 'em believe, as long as they're inside the show. That's what you lack."
                "How do I get it, Tim? How do I learn what makes a chump tick?"
                "Hell, I can't tell you that; that's the piece you have to learn for yourself. Get out and stir around and be a chump yourself a while, maybe. But- Well, take this notion you had of billing yourself as 'The Man from Mars.' You mustn't offer the chump what he won't swallow. They've all seen the Man from Mars, in pictures and on stereovision. Hell, I've seen him myself. Sure, you look a bit like him, same general type, a casual resemblance-but even if you were his twin brother, the marks know they won't find the Man from Mars in a ten-in-one in the sticks. It's as silly as it would be to bill a sword swallower as 'the President of the United States.' Get me? A chump wants to believe-but he won't thank you to insult what trace of intelligence he has. And even a chump has brains of a sort. You have to remember that."
                "I will remember."
                "Okay. I talk too much-but a talker gets in the habit. Are you kids going to be all right? How's the grouch bag? Hell, I oughtn't to do it-but do you need a loan?"
                "Thanks, Tim. We're not hurtin' any."
                "Well, take care of yourself. Bye, Jill." He hurried out.
                Patricia Paiwonski came in through the rear fly, wearing a robe. "Kids? Tim sloughed your act."
                "We were leaving anyhow, Pat."
                "I knew he was going to. He makes me so mad I'm tempted to jump the show myself."
                "Now, Pat-"
                "I mean it. I could take my act anywhere and he knows it. Leave him without a blow-off. He can get other acts . . . but a good blow-off that the clowns won't clobber is hard to find."
                "Pat, Tim is right, and Jill and I know it. I don't have showmanship."
                "Well ... maybe so. But I'm going to miss you. You've been just like my own kids to me. Oh, dear! Look, the show doesn't roll until morning-come back to my living top and set awhile and visit."
                Jill said, "Better yet, Patty, come into town with us and have a couple of drinks. How would you like to soak yourself in a big, hot tub, with bath salts?"
                "Uh, I'll bring a bottle."
                "No," Mike objected, "I know what you drink and we've got it. Come along."
                "Well, I'll come-you're at the Imperial, aren't you?-but I can't come with you. I've got to be sure my babies are all right first and tell Honey Bun I'll be gone a bit and fix her hot water bottles. I'll catch a cab. Half an hour, maybe."
                They drove into town with Mike at the controls. It was a fairly small town, without automatic traffic control even downtown. Mike drove with careful precision, exactly at zone maximum and sliding the little ground car into holes Jill could not see until they were through them. He did it without effort in the same fashion in which he juggled. Jill knew how it was done, had even learned to do it a bit herself; Mike stretched his time sense until the problem of juggling eggs or speeding through traffic was an easy one with' everything in slow motion. Nevertheless she reflected that it was an odd accomplishment for a man who, only months earlier, had been baffled by tying shoelaces.
                She did not talk. Mike could talk while on extended time, if necessary, but it was awkward to converse while they were running on different time rates. Instead she thought with mild nostalgia of the life they were leaving, calling it up in her mind and cherishing it, some of it in Martian concepts, more of it in English. She had enjoyed it very much. All her life, until she had met Mike, she had been under