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the widgit."
"Widgit control? That sounds to me like one of the Tasks of Var-am."
"Eh?" said the Commissioner. "Oh yes. We have a parallel myth. The Labors of Hercules. Quite true, it does. It is a fascinating thing to me," he went on, reaching for another drink as the service unit silently answered his beckoning finger, "how in some ways the same myths have appeared on both our worlds. I have found this to be the case where parallel rituals arose, as a result of certain similarities in group responses to environ Oh, please excuse me, Mr. Jackson. I have not yet succeeded in shaking off my past--"
"Not at all," Leonard said. "I'm really very interested in all sorts of things, and particularly in getting to know as much as I can about Mars. I wanted to ask Miss Ironsmith -- er by the way, is it Miss? I mean, are you married?"
Lucy blushed a delicate brown and for a moment her lips were pressed tight together. Then her face cleared, and she laughed.
But the Commissioner, obviously very upset, had wallowed up out of his chair and said to her, "I abase myself Un Ham deolg. Please forgive his impertinence." And to Leonard he said sternly, "You must apologize. Your question, I know, was lightly meant by our standards, but by the standards of Miss Ironsmith's people it was in shocking taste. It was the equivalent of asking a well-brought-up young lady from, say Akron, Ohio, whether she is a prostitute."
"Oh, my God!" Leonard cried. "I didn't--I'm sorry. I'm really terribly sorry, Miss Ironsmith."
"It was nothing. You have not been long in our world, and I certainly couldn't expect you to learn all the customs of all the peoples of Earth." She caught herself. "Ah! You see? Now it's my turn to ask forgiveness. For we call our world Earth in our language, and often forget when I translate."
"Well, then we're all friends," the Commissioner said, puffing out his cheeks. "Now then, Mr. Jackson. You said you plan to be here for several months, collecting and surveying. I