“I don’t know what to say.” Lenny answered, curling one long moustache end around a finger. “They’re all on the account books.”

“And I need the most worthless.” I said. “Or rather, my daughter needs it for school.”

“Alice?”

“Alice.”

“Then you know what,” Friedman said, “I’ll give you the gold. Or rather, not to you, but to Alice. And you can pay me back with a favor in return.”

“With pleasure.”

“Loan me one of your Centaurian Blue Leopards for one day.”

“What?”

“Your Blue Leopard. We are infested with mice.”

“They go after the stones?”

“I don’t know what it is they are eating, but the Pied Piper would be hard pressed to keep up with them. And they do not fear the cat. And they get away from the robot mousecatchers and ignore the old style mousetraps. But the smell and sight of a Blue Leopard sends mice running until they can’t go any further. Now, what am I to do? A Blue Leopard is a rare and exotic animal, and I need someone who can bring it to the Museum and make certain it doesn’t eat anyone. Other than mice, of course.”

“Okay.” I said. “Just send the gold nugget by the morning, by pneumopost.”

I hung up the videophone and immediately heard a knock on the door. I opened it. Before our door stood a fair haired little boy in the orange costume of a Venusian terraformer, with the emblem of first Expedition to the Sirius system on his sleeve.

“Pardon me.” He said. “Are you Alice’s dad?”

“I am.”

“Hello. My name is Egorov. Is Alice at home.”

“No. She went off somewhere.”

“Too bad. Can you be trusted?”

“Me? Oh, of course!”

“Then I have to have a man to man conversation with you.”

“Not Astronaut to Astronaut?”

“Don’t laugh.” Egorov flushed red. “I plan to earn my wings some day.”

“I don’t doubt you will.” I said. “So how about the man to man conversation?”