meet its feet. It was of sandy texture, reddish in color.

"Sandstone?" Rick guessed.

Bartouki smiled. "I hoped you would say that. Here. Examine it."

Rick took the cat. He liked it very much. The design was clean and
elegant, stylized after the Egyptian manner. But it wasn't sandstone. It
was heavy, but not heavy enough to be sandstone, and the sheen was not
that of a mineral. Whatever the material, it had been fashioned in one
piece, probably cast in a mold.

"I give up," he said. "What is it?"

"Plastic," Bartouki replied, obviously pleased. "It did not come from
Egypt. It was made right here in America. In Chicago, to be exact. It is
what you call a prototype."

"But it's Egyptian in design," Barby protested. She took the cat from
Rick and examined it.

"Yes, it is clearly an Egyptian cat. The design came from Egypt, but the
cat from America. I have been working on this for months with a plastics
company. Now I have the model, and the method. We will reproduce these
in quantity in Cairo."

"It's pretty heavy for plastic," Rick commented.

"True. We put a piece of lead in the middle of the casting. You see, it
looks like stone, and the buyer will expect it to be heavy. So, for
psychological reasons, we give it weight--only not so much that it
becomes a problem to carry."

"You certainly have it worked out," Scotty said admiringly. "But why a
cat? Why not a ... a camel?"

"We have camels of camel leather, brass, and wood. But we do not have a
good cat. You see, the cat is important in Egyptian history. There was
even a cat goddess of the Upper Nile Kingdom, called Bubaste. In the
ancient tombs there are sometimes mummies of cats. Some cat lovers think
our land first developed the domestic strain of cat. So we believe
tourist cat lovers should have an authentic reproduction of one. This
particular cat is a faithful copy of an antique, which I am fortunate to
own."

"What will you do with it now?" Barby asked.

"Send it to my associate in Cairo, as soon as possible. I would like to
airmail it right away, but you Americans overload the mails at
Christmas, so it would be safer to wait. Next week I hope to send it
with full instructions, hoping to get production started in time for the
big tourist season. I wish it could go sooner. It is needed."

Barby said impulsively, "Rick leaves the day after tomorrow. He could
take it for you. Couldn't you, Rick?"

There was no reason to refuse. It was certainly