."

Ted Graham looked at him sharply. "Isn't there any money around here?"
He had a sudden vision of a tax accountant with no customers.

"Plenty of money, but no real estate customers."

They entered the living room. Sectional divans lined the walls. Subdued
lighting glowed from the corners. Two paintings hung on the opposite
walls--oblongs of odd lines and twists that made Ted Graham dizzy.

Warning bells clamored in his mind.

* * * * *

Martha Graham crossed to the windows, looked at the lights far away
below. "I had no idea we'd climbed that far," she said. "It's like a
fairy city."

Mrs. Rush emitted a short, nervous laugh.

Ted Graham glanced around the room, thought: _If the rest of the house
is like this, it's worth fifty or sixty thousand_. He thought of the
trailer: _A good one, but not worth more than seven thousand_.

Uneasiness was like a neon sign flashing in his mind. "This seems
so ..." He shook his head.

"Would you like to see the rest of the house?" asked Rush.

Martha Graham turned from the window. "Oh, yes."

Ted Graham shrugged. _No harm in looking_, he thought.

When they returned to the living room, Ted Graham had doubled his
previous estimate on the house's value. His brain reeled with the
summing of it: a solarium with an entire ceiling covered by sun lamps,
an automatic laundry where you dropped soiled clothing down a chute,
took it washed and ironed from the other end ...

"Perhaps you and your wife would like to discuss it in private," said
Rush. "We will leave you for a moment."

And they were gone before Ted Graham could protest.

Martha Graham said, "Ted, I honestly never in my life dreamed--"

"Something's very wrong, honey."

"But, Ted--"

"This house is worth at least a hundred thousand dollars. Maybe more.
And they want to trade _this_--" he looked around him--"for a
seven-thousand-dollar trailer?"

"Ted, they're foreigners. And if they're so foolish they don't know the
value of this place, then why should--"

"I don't like it," he said. Again he looked around the room, recalled
the fantastic equipment of the house. "But maybe you're right."

He stared out at the city lights. They had a lacelike quality: tall
buildings linked by lines of flickering incandescence. Something like a
Roman candle shot skyward in the distance.

"Okay!" he said. "If they want to trade, let's go push the deal ..."

Abruptly, the house shuddered. T