ortation system is like, where the museum is, how to
get there, what visitors to a museum do and say, the regulations he
might unwittingly break, how much an ordinary citizen is supposed to
know about which customs and such. Now add the possible danger that he
might be slapped into jail or an insane asylum if he makes a mistake
and you've got a rough notion of the spot I felt I was in. Being able
to speak English doesn't make much difference; not knowing what's
regarded as right and wrong, and the unknown consequences, are enough
to panic anybody.

That doesn't make it clear enough.

Well, look, take the electrical appliances in that store; that might
give you an idea of the situation and the way it affected me.

The appliances must have been as familiar to the people of that time
as toasters and TV sets and lamps are to us. But the things didn't
make a bit of sense to me ... any more than our appliances would to
the ancient Egyptian. Can you imagine him trying to figure out what
those items are for and how they work?

* * * * *

Here are some gadgets you can puzzle over:

There was a light fixture that you put against any part of a wall--no
screws, no cement, no wires, even--and it held there and lit up, and
it stayed lit no matter where you moved it on the wall. Talk about
pin-up lamps ... this was really it!

Then I came across something that looked like an ashtray with a blue
electric shimmer obscuring the bottom of the bowl. I lit my
pipe--others I'd passed had been smoking, so I knew it was safe to do
the same--and flicked in the match. It disappeared. I don't mean it
was swirled into some hidden compartment. _It vanished._ I emptied the
pipe into the ashtray and that went, too. Looking around to make sure
nobody was watching, I dredged some coins out of my pocket and let
them drop into the tray. They were gone. Not a particle of them was
left. A disintegrator? I haven't got the slightest idea.

There were little mirror boxes with three tiny dials on the front of
each. I turned the dials on one--it was like using three dial
telephones at the same time--and a pretty girl's face popped onto the
mirror surface and looked expectantly at me.

"Yes?" she said, and waited for me to answer.

"I--uh--wrong number, I guess," I answered, putting the box down in a
hurry and going to the other side of the shop because I didn't have
even a dim notion how to turn it off.

The thing I