try to sell them something.

In spite of recent changes, the town still has its unique qualities. As
a result of them the permanent population includes smugglers and
black-marketeers, fugitives from justice and international con men,
espionage and counter-espionage agents, homosexuals, nymphomaniacs,
alcoholics, drug addicts, displaced persons, ex-royalty, and subversives
of every flavor. Local law limits the activities of few of these.

Like I said, it's quite a town.

* * * * *

I looked up from my _Herald Tribune_ and said, "Hello, Paul. Anything
new cooking?"

He sank into the chair opposite me and looked around for the waiter. The
tables were all crowded and since mine was a face he recognized, he
assumed he was welcome to intrude. It was more or less standard
procedure at the Cafe de Paris. It wasn't a place to go if you wanted to
be alone.

Paul said, "How are you, Rupert? Haven't seen you for donkey's years."

The waiter came along and Paul ordered a glass of beer. Paul was an
easy-going, sallow-faced little man. I vaguely remembered somebody
saying he was from Liverpool and in exports.

"What's in the newspaper?" he said, disinterestedly.

"Pogo and Albert are going to fight a duel," I told him, "and Lil Abner
is becoming a rock'n'roll singer."

He grunted.

"Oh," I said, "the intellectual type." I scanned the front page. "The
Russkies have put up another manned satellite."

"They have, eh? How big?"

"Several times bigger than anything we Americans have."

The beer came and looked good, so I ordered a glass too.

Paul said, "What ever happened to those poxy flying saucers?"

"What flying saucers?"

A French girl went by with a poodle so finely clipped as to look as
though it'd been shaven. The girl was in the latest from Paris. Every
pore in place. We both looked after her.

"You know, what everybody was seeing a few years ago. It's too bad one
of these bloody manned satellites wasn't up then. Maybe they would've
seen one."

"That's an idea," I said.

We didn't say anything else for a while and I began to wonder if I could
go back to my paper without rubbing him the wrong way. I didn't know
Paul very well, but, for that matter, it's comparatively seldom you ever
get to know anybody very well in Tangier. Largely, cards are played
close to the chest.

* * * * *

My beer came and a plate of tapas for us both. Tapas at the