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attending a luncheon-three o'clock, perhaps.
    We studied several pamphlets displayed on a rack: Agriculture in the British Isles, Sports in Britain, Come to the Coronation, Historic Abbeys. That is, I did so; Ticky spent her time making noises like a kettle about to boil. About three-thirty the consul returned.
    He was a tall young man with a beautiful blond beard and he had the perfect, somewhat distant good manners of a top-drawer Britisher. "Awfully sorry to have kept you waiting, my dear chap. What can I do for you?"
    We explained again. "Oh, yes, those-I had been wondering what to do with them. I'm afraid there isn't much I can do for you. According to your letter you aren't going to England."
    I had come armed with the State Department publication about visas and I showed him the various notes in fine print. "We would like to have you issue visas for the Union of South Africa, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand."
    He blinked at the page and admitted that it did seem to say so. "Too bad, really. Sorry not to accommodate you."
    "Then this thing put out by our State Department is wrong? Maybe it would be a good idea to write and tell them so."
    "Well, it is not exactly wrong. But I once granted an Australian visa and became involved in such a dreadful bother that I decided never to do so again."
    Ticky took a deep breath and I could see her muscles tighten. I jabbed her in the ribs, thereby saving temporarily an appearance of international amity. "Perhaps I did not make clear our situation," I went on. "We haven't time to send these passports around to each consulate separately. Couldn't you stretch a point, since you have the authority, and help us out?"
    He shrugged. "Awfully sorry."
    I stepped on Ticky's foot. "Well, I suppose you can issue the Singapore visa?"
    He reluctantly conceded the point and we started filling out the same old forms-age, sex, occupation, place of birth, purpose of visit, means of transportation, race, permanent residence, marital status, et cetera ad nauseam. I was tempted to emulate a friend of mine who for years has been putting down his occupation as "necrophilist" without once having it questioned.
    Presently we handed in our homework with our passports. After about ten minutes the young man with the beard stuck his head out and said cheerfully, "I seem to have ruined one page in Mrs. Heinlein's passport-the wrong rubber stamp. Sorry. I'll just scratch it out, eh?"
    I grasped firmly Ticky's upper arm. "Quite all right."
    It was about four-thirty when we got out of there, having at last received permission to change ships in Singapore but nothing else. Our British cousin relented a bit as we left. "If it turns out that you simply can't get those other visas any other way, come back another day and I'll see what I can do for you."
    I thanked him and got Ticky out of there quickly before she could start quoting Patrick Henry. It was a cold, gloomy drive back in the dusk and Ticky was unusually silent. Once she spoke up. "I'd like to set fire to his beard."
     
    We gave up and loaded the problem on the patient shoulders of my friend and business agent in New York, Lurton Blassingame. His secretary took the passports around by hand to each of the consulates in New York. Even this process cost twenty-seven dollars in long-distance tolls (to obtain questionnaires first) plus (as near as I can guess) about sixty dollars of his secretary's time, plus fees-all totaling around a hundred dollars for a ritual as useless as stamping white horses.
    All but Indonesia-The Indonesian consulate in New York refused to have anything to do with our passports. We lived in Colorado Springs; Colorado lies west of the Mississippi; therefore our visas would have to be granted by the Indonesian consul in San Francisco, Q.E.D. and ipse dixit.
    I pointed out, by long-distance phone, that while we might be in Colorado, our passports and paperwork were physically present in New York and would be delivered by hand along