ly like those of Portland, Maine or
Portland, Oregon.

"How do you like those two, coming now?" Paco said.

Those two coming now consisted of two better than averagely dressed
girls who would run somewhere in their early twenties. A little too
much make-up by western standards, and clumsily applied.

"Blondes," Paco said soulfully.

"They're all blondes here," Hank said.

"Wonderful, isn't it?"

The girls smiled at them in passing and Paco turned to look after, but
they didn't stop. Hank and Paco went on.

It didn't take Hank long to get onto Paco's system. It was beautifully
simple. He merely smiled widely at every girl that went by. If she
smiled back, he stopped and tried to start a conversation with her.

He got quite a few rebuffs but--Hank remembered an old joke--on the
other hand he got quite a bit of response.

Before they had completed a block and a half of strolling, they were
standing on a corner, trying to talk with two of Moscow's younger
set--female variety. Here again, Paco was a wonder. His languages were
evidently Spanish, English and French but he was in there pitching
with a language the full vocabulary of which consisted of _Da_ and
_Neit_ so far as he was concerned.

Hank stood back a little, smiling, trying to stay in character, but in
amused dismay at the other's aggressive abilities.

Paco said, "Listen, I think I can get these two to come up to the
room. Which one do you like?"

Hank said, "If they'll come up to the room, then they're
professionals."

Paco grinned at him. "I'm a professional, too. A lawyer by trade. It's
just a matter of different professions."

A middle-aged pedestrian, passing by, said to the girls in Russian,
"Have you no shame before the foreign tourists?"

They didn't bother to answer. Paco went back to his attempt to make a
deal with the taller of the two.

The smaller, who sported astonishingly big and blue eyes, said to Hank
in Russian, "You're too good to associate with _metrofanushka_ girls?"

Hank frowned puzzlement. "I don't speak Russian," he said.

She laughed lightly, almost a giggle, and, in the same low voice her
partner was using on Paco, said, "I think you do, Mr. Kuran. In the
afternoon, tomorrow, avoid whatever tour the Intourist people wish to
take you on and wander about Sovietska Park." She giggled some more.
The world-wide epitome of a girl being picked up on the street.

Hank took her in more closely. Possibly twenty-five years o