II

The hotel manager was a small-minded man with a narrow-minded outlook

and a brain that was almost totally unable to learn. He was, in short,

a "normal" Earthman. He took one look at the card that had been

dropped on his desk from the chute of the registration computer and

reacted. His thin gray brows drew down over his cobralike brown eyes,

and he muttered, "Ridiculous!" under his breath.

The registration computer wouldn't have sent him the card if there

hadn't been something odd about it, and odd things happened so rarely

that the manager took immediate notice of it. One look at the title

before the name told him everything he needed to know. Or so he

thought.

The registration robot handled routine things routinely. If they were

not routine, the card was dropped on the manager's desk. It was then

the manager's job to fit everything back into the routine. He grasped

the card firmly between thumb and forefinger and stalked out of his

office. He took an elevator down to the registration desk. His trouble

was that he had seized upon the first thing he saw wrong with the card

and saw nothing thereafter. To him, "out of the ordinary" meant

"wrong"--which was where he made his mistake.

There was a man waiting impatiently at the desk. He had put the card

that had been given him by the registration robot on the desk and was

tapping his fingers on it.

The manager walked over to him. "Morgan, Harry?" he asked with a firm

but not arrogant voice.

"Is this the city of York, New?" asked the man. There was a touch of

cold humor in his voice that made the manager look more closely at

him. He weighed perhaps two-twenty and stood a shade over six-two, but

it was the look in the blue eyes and the bearing of the man's body

that made the manager suddenly feel as though this man were someone

extraordinary. That, of course, meant "wrong."

Then the question that the man had asked in rebuttal to his own

penetrated the manager's mind, and he became puzzled. "Er ... I beg

your pardon?"

"I said, 'Is this York, New?'" the man repeated.

"This is New York, if that's what you mean," the manager said.

"Then I am Harry Morgan, if that's what you mean."

The manager, for want of anything better to do to cover his

confusion, glanced back at the card--without really looking at it.

Then he looked back up at the face of Harry Morgan. "Evidently you

have not turned in your Citizen's Identification Card for renewal, Mr.

Morgan," he said briskly. As long as he was on familiar ground, he

knew how to handle himself.

"Odd's Fish!" said Morgan with utter sadness, "How did you know?"

The manager's comfortable feeling of rightness had returned. "You

can't hope to fool a registration robot, Mr. Morgan," he said "When a

discrepancy is observed, the robot immediately notifies a person in

authority. Two months ago, Government Edict 7-3356-Hb abolished titles

of courtesy absolutely and finally. You Englishmen have clung to them

for far longer than one would think possible, but that has been

abolished." He flicked the card with a finger. "You have registered

here as 'Commodore Sir Harry Morgan'--obviously, that is the name and

anti-social title registered on your card. When you put the card into

the registration robot, the error was immediately noted and I was

notified. You should not be using an out-of-date card, and I will be

forced to notify the Citizen's Registration Bureau."

"Forced?" said Morgan in mild amazement. "Dear me! What a terribly

strong word."

The manager felt the hook bite, but he could no more resist the

impulse to continue than a cat could resist catnip. His brain did not

have the ability to overcome his instinct. And his instinct was wrong.

"You may consider yourself under arrest, Mr. Morgan."

"I thank you for that permission," Morgan said with a happy smile.

"But I think I shall not take advantage of it." He stood there with

that same happy smile while two hotel security guards walked up and

stood beside him, having been called by the manager's signal.

Again it took the manager a little time to realize what Morgan had

said. He blinked. "Advantage of it?" he repeated haphazardly.

* * * * *

Harry Morgan's smile vanished as though it had never been. His blue

eyes seemed to change from the soft blue of a cloudless sky to the

steely blue of a polished revolver. Oddly enough, his lips did not

change. They still seemed to smile, although the smile had gone.

"Manager," he said deliberately, "if you will pardon my using your

title, you evidently cannot read."

The manager had not lived in the atmosphere of the Earth's Citizen's

Welfare State as long as he had without knowing that dogs eat dogs. He

looked back at the card that had been delivered to his desk only

minutes before and this time he read it thoroughly. Then, with a

gesture, he signaled the Security men to return to their posts. But he

did not take his eyes from the card.

"My apologies," Morgan said when the Security police had retired out

of earshot. There was no apology in the tone of his voice. "I perceive

that you can read. Bully, may I say, for you." The bantering tone was

still in his voice, the pseudo-smile still on his lips, the chill of

cold steel still in his eyes. "I realize that titles of courtesy are

illegal on earth," he continued, "because courtesy itself is illegal.

However, the title 'Commodore' simply means that I am entitled to

command a spaceship containing two or more persons other than myself.

Therefore, it is not a title of courtesy, but of ability."

[Illustration]

The manager had long since realized that he was dealing with a Belt

man, not an Earth citizen, and that the registration robot had sent

him the card because of that, not because there was anything illegal.

Men from the Belt did not come to Earth either willingly or often.

Still unable to override his instincts--which erroneously told him

that there was something "wrong"--the manager said: "What does the

'Sir' mean?"

Harry Morgan glowed warmly. "Well, now, Mr. Manager, I will tell you.

I will give you an analogy. In the time of the Roman Republic,

twenty-one centuries or so ago, the leader of an Army was given the

title _Imperator_. But that title could not be conferred upon him by

the Senate of Rome nor by anyone else in power. No man could call

himself _Imperator_ until his own soldiers, the men under him, had

publicly acclaimed him as such. If, voluntarily, his own men shouted

'_Ave, Imperator!_' at a public gathering, then the man could claim

the title. Later the title degenerated--" He stopped.

The manager was staring at him with uncomprehending eyes, and Morgan's

outward smile became genuine. "Sorry," he said condescendingly. "I

forgot that history is not a popular subject in the Welfare World."

Morgan had forgotten no such thing, but he went right on. "What I

meant to say was that the spacemen of the Belt Cities have voluntarily

agreed among themselves to call me 'sir'. Whether that is a title of

ability or a title of courtesy, you can argue about with me at another

time. Right now, I want my room key."

[Illustration]

Under the regulations, the manager knew there was nothing else he

could do. He had made a mistake, and he knew that he had. If he had

only taken the trouble to read the rest of the card--

"Awfully sorry, Mr. Morgan," he said with a lopsided smile that didn't

even look genuine. "The--"

"Watch those courtesy titles," Morgan reprimanded gently. "'Mister'

comes ultimately from the Latin _magister_, meaning 'master' or

'teacher'. And while I may be your master, I wouldn't dare think I

could teach you anything."

"All citizens are entitled to be called 'Mister'," the manager said

with a puzzled look. He pushed a room key across the desk.

"Which just goes to show you," said Harry Morgan, picking up the key.

He turned casually, took one or two steps away from the registration

desk, then--quite suddenly--did an about-face and snapped: "_What

happened to Jack Latrobe?_"

"Who?" said the manager, his face gaping stupidly.

Harry Morgan knew human beings, and he was fairly certain that the

manager couldn't have reacted that way unless he honestly had no

notion of what Morgan was talking about.

He smiled sweetly. "Never you mind, dear boy. Thank you for the key."

He turned again and headed for the elevator bank, confident that the

manager would find the question he had asked about Jack Latrobe so

completely meaningless as to be incapable of registering as a useful

memory.

He was perfectly right.