Stranger in a Strange Land

a hurry; he'll be right out. I'll get you a drink- then you can have your second drink in the tub if you like. Loads of hot water."
                "I had a shower after I put Honey Bun to bed, but-yes, I'd love a tub bath. But, Jill baby, I didn't come here to borrow your bath tub; I came because I'm just heartsick that you kids are leaving the show."
                "We won't lose track of you." Jill was busy with glasses. The hotel was so old that not even the "Bridal Suite" had its own ice dispenser but the night bellman, indoctrinated and subsidized, had left a carton of ice cubes. "Tim was right and you know he was. Mike and I have got to slick up our act a lot before we can hold up our end."
                "Your act is okay. Needs a few laughs in it, maybe, but-Hi, Smitty." As Mike came in, she offered him a gloved hand. Mrs. Paiwonski always wore gloves away from the lot, and a high-necked dress and stockings. Dressed so, she looked like a middle-aged, most respectable widow, who had kept her figure trim in spite of her years-looked so, because she was precisely that.
                "I was just telling Jill," she went on, "that you've got a good act, you two."
                Mike smiled gently. "Now, Pat, you don't have to kid us. It stinks. We know it."
                "No, it doesn't, dearie. Oh, maybe it needs a little something to give it some zing. A few jokes. Or, well, you could even cut down on Jill's costume a little. You've got an awful cute figure, hon."
                Jill shook her head. "That wouldn't do it."
                "Well, I saw a magician once that used to bring his assistant out dressed for the Gay 'Nineties-the eighteen-nineties, that is-not even her legs showing. Then he would disappear one garment after another. The marks loved it. But don't misunderstand me, dear-nothing unrefined. She finished . . . oh, in almost as much as you wear now."
                "Patty," Jill said frankly, "I'd do our act stark naked if the clowns wouldn't close the show." As she said it, she realized that she meant it- and wondered how Graduate Nurse Boardman, floor supervisor, had reached the point where she could mean it?
                Mike, of course- And she was quite happy about it.
                Mrs. Paiwonski shook her head. "You couldn't, honey. The marks would riot. Just a touch more ginger ale, dear. But if you've got a good figure, why not use it? How far do you think I would get as a tattooed lady ii I didn't peel off all they'll let me?"
                "Speaking of that," Mike said, "you don't look comfortable in all those clothes, Pat. I think the aircooling in this dump has gone sour again -it must be at least eighty." He himself was dressed in a light robe, his concession to the easy-going conventions of carney good manners. Extreme heat, he had learned, affected him slightly, enough so that he sometimes had to adjust consciously his metabolism-extreme cold affected him not at all. But he knew that their friend was used to the real comfort of almost nothing and affected the clothes she now wore to cover her tattoos when out among the marks; Jill had explained it to him. "Why don't you get comfortable? 'Ain't nobody here but just us chickens.'" The latter, he knew, was a joke, an appropriate one for emphasizing that friends were in private-Jubal had tried to explain it to him, but failed. But Mike had carefully noted when and how the idiom could be used.
                "Sure, Patty," Jill agreed. "If you're raw under that dress, I can get you something light and comfortable. Or we'll just make Mike close his eyes."
                "Uh ... well, I did slip back into one of my costumes."
                "Then don't be stiff with friends. I'll get your zippers."
                "Le'me get these stockings and shoes." She went on talking while trying to think how she could get the conversation around to religion, where she wanted it. Bless them, these kids were ready to be seekers, she was certain-and she had counted on the whole season to bring them around to the light . . . not just one hurried visit before they left. "The point about show business, Smitty, is that first you have to know what the marks want . . . and you have to know what it is you're giving them and how to make 'em like it. Now if you were a real magician- oh, I don't mean that you aren't