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"Oh, Roy," Myrt said, and swatted hionna have to keep you on a leash?"

"Arf arf," Roy said

"I swear, men are terrible creatures Still, I have to say this isthan our last cruise"

"You had a good time"

"Well, I did, but the conversation! Perforations, inverted underprints--"

"Overprints," Roy said

"Like it matters? Roy," she announced, "took ine? Every ti, all of the men rushed to the nearest post office"

Roy said it wasn’t quite like that, and Myrt said it was close enough, and Roy said only thirty-soers were stamp collectors, it was just a small portion of the whole, and Myrt said yes, but those were the people they had to sit with every night at dinner, and finally Keller was able to get a word in edgewise

"You’re a collector," he said

"Guilty as charged, but I never would have brought it up, because there’s nothing less interesting than someone else’s hobby"

Was that true? Keller didn’t think so, and had foundabout their hobby or pastime But what he said was, "Well, I wouldn’t be bored I’ht be, if you can pronounce it correctly Myrt still has trouble after all these years What do you collect, Nick?"

Keller told hieneral ide," he said "Got to ad quite that a My main interest is stamps of Turkey, and don’t ask me why No Turkish ancestors, no connection of any sort, and I’ve never been to the country and don’t expect I’ll ever get there I just like the stamps, for some reason"

Itwith Turkey I collect a batch of dead countries connected to Turkey, like Hatay and Latakia"

"And Eastern Rumelia," Keller offered

"You bet And, let’s see, besides Turkey I have one topical collection I collect fish"

"That’s fish on staht think Roy had a collection of actual fishes

"Now, I like fish," Roy said, "though I wouldn’t want it served to ht And when I was a kid I had an aquariu the fish, until they all died and I erow ferns in And I’ve been fishing, but only a couple of tiain in that particular fashion But I do like stamps with fish on them I just like the way they look, all the different species"

That made sense to Keller, too

Keller, stretched out on his bunk, turned at the sound of Julia’s key card in the lock She entered, holding the plastic rectangle aloft like a Plains Indian brandishing a scalp

"That’s the key to 501?"

She shook her head "It’s a spare key to our cabin I just let myself in with it"

"Oh"

"Sillymyself out In a minute I’ll take the key back" She tapped it with her thuive n for it But I sahere she keeps the keys, and how they’re sorted Now if soet her to come away from the desk for a minute or two, someone else could slip aith the key to 501"

"Last tiirls behind it They looked enough alike to be Xerox copies, but there were two of thereed "Two on duty fro till four in the afternoon, and two others froht?"

"Pilar is so glad she does not have the graveyard shift this week She had it last week, and you get so lonely"

"You got friendly with her"

"It never hurts to be friendly," she said "She’s from the Philippines"

"I think they all are"

"Uh-huh All the dining roo staff, and the ones on the desk The cruise director and his staff are American, except for the ones who aren’t And the crew’s a mini United Nations, with a lot of Eastern Europeans The chef is Swiss Pilar doesn’t like the Ukrainians"

"Why not?"