When he hung up on Sweetie-Baby, he went to the mirror and examined himself with quiet pride. What woman could ask for more ?

And far across the wide Atlantic in Paris, France, at just about this same time, something else was happening that would in a short time also have an effect on San Francisco, California.

The balalaika player at the Casanova, a well-known long-established night club (or boite de nuit, which translates literally as 'box of night' for those interested in such things) on Rue Pierre Charron, was smashed out of his mind.

What had brought him to this state of senselessness was not known, nor indeed will it ever be known. All that is remembered of the incident is that as the 'witching hour' approached * and the assistant under-manager went to summon him from his room in order to tune up before making an appearance, he found the balalaika player, previously a responsible, respectable, near teetotaler, sitting on the window ledge of his dressing room clutching a bottle of brandy to his chest and singing bawdy songs to an appreciative audience of hookers who stood below on the sidewalk.

The clientele of the Casanova had come, over the years, to expect that their musical entertainment would consist of soft, moody, and above all romantic numbers, suitable background for the gentle burbling noise champagne makes when being poured into fine crystal glasses. Ladies and gentlemen came to the Casanova, frankly, with romance on their minds. Neither seductors nor seductees would, the assistant under-manager instantly realized, be at all happy with a balalaika

* In Paris, France, the 'witching hour,' or midnight, means, among other things, that musicians required to ply their trade go on overtime, or time-and-a-half. This is why the Casanova has eight fiddlers playing from eight to midnight, and one balalaika player from midnight on.

He brought the problem to the attention of his immediate superior, the under-manager himself, who personally left his post to see for himself, and promptly had hysterics. The assistant under-manager took it upon himself to inform the manager himself.

'Pierre,' the manager said, 'the honor of the Casanova is at stake! In its hour of crisis, I call upon you to shoulder the responsibility!'

'Just tell me what I can do,' Pierre replied.

'Go get me a balalaika player, you idiot! And immediately!'

'Yes, sir!'

'And hurry! Every minute I have to keep the fiddle players past midnight, they're getting time-and-a-half!'

One cannot, of course, even in Paris, France, call up the friendly musicians' local at midnight and ask them to send a balalaika player right over. For one thing, the musicians' union is closed at that hour, and for another, balalaika players in Paris are about as common as they are in, say, Hillandale, Ohio.

The assistant under-manager, faced with this problem, did what any Parisian would do under the circumstances. First he had a strong cognac, and then he sought the assistance of a taxi driver.

The cab driver shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

'I know of no at-liberty balalaika players,' he said finally. 'Perhaps m'sieu would settle for a trumpet player? Or perhaps a guitar player?'

A trumpet player was obviously out of the question, but there were possibilities in a guitar player. If nothing else, a guitar player, starting fresh, would not be on time-and-a-half for overtime.

'Take me to the guitar player,' the assistant under-manager cried, leaping into the taxi.

They crossed the Seine onto what is known as the Left Bank, and, after negotiating a number of narrow, picturesque streets, stopped before an establishment from which came the sounds of Spanish flamenco music.

For the purpose of the Casanova, Spanish flamenco music was about as useful as a trumpet player playing the overture to William Tell or the opening bars of the triumphal march from Aida - that is to say, it was not the sort of music in which either seductor or seductee would really be much interested — but, with no other alternative, the assistant undermanager went into the establishment, which was identified by a neon sign as El Gaucho.

Immediately inside the door he came across a young, black-haired man who had a guitar with him and was drinking from a glass of water.

'I seek a musician,' the assistant under-manager said to him.

'I regret, sir, inasmuch as I am quite without funds and desperately need employment, that I am probably not your man. I am here to listen to these flamenco guitarists in the hope that I can learn that form of music and one day find a job.'

'You talk funny, you know that?' the assistant under-manager said.

'I regret, sir, that while my French is more or less fluent, it is not the French of the common man. I learned my French in a monastery, where the good brothers were Russian exiles, not Frenchmen.'

'Russian?' You're putting me on!'

'No, sir. I was educated at the monastery of St. Igor in my native San Sebastian.' 'You're kidding!'

‘No, sir. Unfortunately, the music they taught me was the music of Russia, and I find to my distress that this is not a very saleable commodity in Paris, France.'

'I don't suppose you can play the balalaika?'

'Oh, yes,' the young man said. 'But I do not despair. I am presently conducting negotiations with an interior decorator. If good fortune smiles on me, he will exchange a Spanish guitar for my poor old balalaika.' He held up the case to show the assistant under-manager his instrument. From its shape, the assistant under-manager of the Casanova recognized that it was a balalaika case (the bottom of a balalaika is generally round, rather than fiat, as a guitar's is).

Within ten seconds, the young man and his balalaika were out of the El Gaucho and inside the taxicab.

En route to the Casanova, the assistant under-manager learned some of the young man's background. He had been sent to Paris to attend the Sorbonne, but there had been a revolution in San Sebastian, and, as a result of that revolution; his father had been jailed, and there was no money for his education.

He had given up hope of going to the Sorbonne, and all he hoped for now was to be able to find a job that would permit him to eat. He had not eaten in three days, he said.

At the Casanova, he was hurriedly dressed in a Russian peasant costume, hurriedly fed a ham sandwich, and literally pushed out onto the floor.

To the profound relief of the manager (who immediately kissed the assistant under-manager on both cheeks and then ordered him to throw 'the other bum' out), the young man was just what they were looking for. He immediately began to play a continuous medley of Russian songs that caused the patrons to cling affectionately to each other and not pay much attention to how much champagne was left in the champagne bottles when the waiters removed them and brought fresh ones.

After seeing how well he had been received by his patrons, after hearing his sad tale of his impoverished friendless condition, and after determining that he was alone in an alien country, the manager immediately prepared a contract that guaranteed the young balalaika player a place to sleep, his choice of leftovers from customers' dinners, and a salary in francs that came to about $23.50 per week in dollars. In return he agreed to play for six hours a night, seven nights a week, starting at midnight.

Thus Pancho Hermanez came to the Casanova and began his new life.

At about the time that Dr. Grogarty placed his call to Dr. Pierce, a dozen singers, dressed in the costumes of the eighteenth century, faced the audience of the Bolshoi Theatre of Grand Opera and Ballet in Moscow, took deep breaths, and belted out together, or ensemble, as they say in grand opera, the final lines of the current production, 'This is the evildoer's end - sinners finally meet their just reward and always will.'

As the conductor's baton guided the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra through the final bars of WolfgangAmadeus Mozart's Don Giovanni, the curtain descended. There was a moment's silence as the music died, and the curtain's rustling was the only sound to be heard in the enormous theater. And then the applause began, accompanied by screams and moans of ecstasy. Someone cried out a name: 'Boris!' This was picked up immediately by others, until the fine crystal chandeliers and the heavy red curtain itself shook with the vibrations of the name. 'Boris! Boris! Boris! Boris!'

Down each aisle, dressed in their very best parade uniforms, sixty officers of the Guards Regiment came at a trot to form a semicircle before the orchestra pit. Once they were in place, lines of ushers started down the aisle; each usher bore an enormous basket of cut flowers.

The huge curtain parted just enough to permit one man to step before the footlights. Dressed in the costume in which he had just sung the tide role, Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov bounded gracefully onto the stage and up to the footlights, his arms raised high in acknowledgement of the audience's appreciation.

He stood six feet five inches tall. The full, jet-black beard that accented his dark Slavic eyes was his own. As he raised his arms again and again, his forty-six-inch chest strained against his lace shirt.

One by one the baskets of cut flowers were laid at his feet as he continued to acknowledge the tumultuous, almost hysterical applause of the audience. From time to time, his eyes dropped to the front rows of the theater, where the sixty officers, chosen for their size, barely managed to restrain three dozen women of all sizes and shapes (but tending toward the middle-aged and well-nourished) who, screaming his name, were attempting to force their way onto the stage.

Finally, he raised his voice. 'My children!' he said, his basso profundo nearly overwhelmed by the waves of applause. He repeated the phrase again, this time calling forth what had often been described as his 'incredible vocal power.'

He raised his hands once again, very high over his head, and then lowered them, palms downward. The noise, the tumult, died as he did so. By the time his hands reached the level of his waist, the enormous theater was silent - except for the sobbing of some women who had been forced to conclude they could not force their way past the Guards Regiment officers.

'My children,' he said sofdy. His voice nevertheless filled the room. 'I, Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov, thank you for coming to hear me sing.'

This occasioned another burst of applause from the left. Boris frowned, raised his left hand, and let it fall again. Silence returned.

'And now I must leave you,' Boris continued. 'Forget me not!'

The applause swelled up again, this time mingled with cries of 'Don't leave us! Stay forever!' and other sentiments of this nature.

He bowed deeply and turned to the curtain to make his departure. A microphone on a long cable descended from the proscenium arch in time to pick up and transmit throughout the theater the singer's inquiry, in English, 'Now, where the hell is the goddamn flap ?'

From stage right, a portly gentleman attired in the dress uniform of a commissar of the Soviet Union marched onstage, trailed by sixteen members of his official entourage, also in their dress uniforms.

'Maestro,' this Soviet luminary cried, 'you are magnificent!'

'Yes, I know,' Boris replied, in fluent Russian. 'How the hell do I get out of here?'

'I come as an official delegate of the Supreme Soviet,' the official said.

'Good for you,' the singer replied, tugging at the curtain and looking for the flap.

'It is my great honor, Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov,' the official replied, 'to inform you that you have been awarded the medal of a Hero of the Soviet Arts.' He turned over his shoulder and one of his aides handed him a small box, from which he took a star knotted to a red ribbon.

'Maestro,' he said, 'dear Boris Alexandrovich ...'

'Are you going to show me how to get out of here or not?' Boris demanded.

'We want to give you your medal!'

'I already have one,' Boris said. 'The damned things aren't even gold, just polished brass. I loathe polished brass. The U.S. Army has a polished brass fetish.'

'... And to once again offer you, dear Boris Alexandrovich, on behalf of the Supreme Soviet, a warm welcome plus status as a Premiere Artist of the Russian People, if you will only stay here in the home of your ancestors.'

'I've been over all this before,' Boris replied impatiently. 'The only reason I come here once a year is to take a look at Uncle Sergei's theater for him.'

'Uncle Sergei ?'

'The Grand Duke Sergei Korsky-Rimsakov,' Boris replied. 'He owns this theater.'

'An artist such as yourself,' the commissar of the Soviet Union said, flushing, 'should not trouble his genius with politics.'

'Politics? Politics ? Who's talking about politics? I'm talking about money. Uncle Sergei hasn't gotten a dime out of this place since 1917. Money's what I'm talking about'

"This is the People's Opera House!'

"The hell it is,' Boris said. 'It's my Uncle Sergei's. He bought it from the czar, and I've got the bill of sale to prove it.'

'About the medal,' the commissar of the Soviet Union said.

'If I take the damned thing, will you show me how to get off the stage?'

'Of course, dear Boris Alexandrovich,' the commissar said.

'O.K., then,' Boris replied. 'But make it quick.'

He turned to face the commissar, who stood on his tiptoes and pinned the medal to Boris' massive chest.

'Congratulations, Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov, Soviet Hero of the Arts!' the commissar said.

'If this gets back to my chapter of the John Birch Society,' Boris said, 'I'll get thrown out on my ass, that's what'll happen.'

'The President of the Supreme Soviet hopes that your schedule will permit you to join him, the other commissars, and their wives for a little reception,' the commissar said.

'Like hell,' Boris said. 'I've been here three days, and I haven't had a decent meal or a decent drink the whole time. While I am prepared to make nearly any sacrifice for my art, I stop short of dying of starvation and thirst. It's off to the airport for me.'

Finally, without assistance from the commissar, he found where the curtain halves overlapped, spread them apart, and disappeared backstage.

Thirty minutes later, a Zis limousine rolled up beside an ungainly droop-nosed jet aircraft at Moscow International Airport. The aircraft bore the legend Air Hussid on the fuselage and the Royal Hussidic coat of arms on the tail.*

* Of the eight Le Discorde supersonic jet transports sold so far, two each have been sold to the Air France and British Airways, and four to Air Hussid, which is owned by the sheikh of Hussid Only the sheikh, whose petroleum income is estimated at $1.2 million per day, is in a position to absorb the $1.35 per-mile-per-seat expense of operating the piece de resistance of Anglo-French aviation technology. The heir apparent to the throne of Hussid, His Royal Highness Sheikh Hassan ad Kayam, Boris' buddy, had been given the aircraft Boris boarded in Moscow to facilitate his diplomatic duties.

Boris erupted from the back seat of the car and bounded up the stairs into the plane. A white-jacketed steward took his coat from him and then followed him into the royal cabin. As Boris settled himself into a goatskin upholstered chair, the steward slid a footrest under his feet.

'May I bring you something, Maestro ?' he asked.

'A little snack,' the singer replied. 'Couple of bottles of bubbly, a steak, a couple of baked potatoes, and maybe a couple of dozen oysters to get started.'

'Immediately, Maestro,' the steward said.

'And tell his nibs to get this show on the road,' Boris said. 'Where is he, anyway? Why wasn't he waiting for me backstage ?'

His Royal Highness Prince Hassan ad Kayam had, several years before, attached himself to the world's greatest opera singer - that is, Boris. It wasn't that His Royal Highness particularly liked grand opera, but rather that he had noticed that Boris' female discards were of greater variety and higher quality than he had been able to get on the open market, despite the facts that it was generally known that his income ran to some $35,000 per day and that he had no objection to paying for quality.

Boris had come to tolerate, even accept, His Royal Highness' faithful presence. There was the airplane, for one thing, which beat standing in line to be insulted by airline-ticket personnel, and Hassan considered it a privilege to be accorded the honor of picking up all Boris' bills, thus sparing Boris to devote his full attention to his art. (The art to which His Royal Highness made reference had nothing to do with grand opera.)

'His Royal Highness, Maestro,' the steward said, 'is not on board.'

'Well, find him, and tell him to get his ass on board,' Boris replied. 'I don't like to be kept waiting. Besides, he's wasting his time. With the exception of the corps de ballet, none of the game around here is worthy of the chase. Unless you happen to be a fat freak.'

'Prince Hassan, Maestro,' the steward said, as he skillfully popped the cork of a Jeroboam of Piper Heidsieck '48, 'is in San Francisco.'

'What is he doing in San Francisco ? I didn't give him permission to go to San Francisco.'

'He said to tell you that he would be sure to pay his respects to your sister, Maestro.'

'He'd damned well better,' Boris said. 'She was, after all, good enough to invite him to her wedding.' He drained a twelve-ounce crystal chalice of the Piper Heidsieck '48 and held it out to be refilled. 'Esmerelda and the baroness are aboard, I take it?' he asked. 'I will see them now.'

He referred to Esmerelda Hoffenburg, the ballerina, and the Baroness d'Iberville, who were members of what was known as the cercle intime, those privileged to spend a good deal of time close - in the case of the baroness and Esmerelda, very close - to the man wisely proclaimed as the world's greatest opera singer.

'No, Maestro,' the steward said nervously. 'The baroness and Esmerelda are with His Royal Highness in San Francisco.'

'You're telling me that I've been deserted in my hour of need? That I am alone on this airplane? What the hell are the baroness and Esmerelda doing in San Francisco ?'

'It would seem, Maestro, that His Royal Highness the Sheikh of Abzug wished to go to San Francisco.'

'Abdullah, too? What the hell is going on in San Francisco that I don't know about?'

'His Royal Highness, you will recall, Maestro, was disconsolate when you told him he couldn't accompany you to Moscow.'

'You know what happened the last time!' Boris said. 'He tried to buy Lenin's tomb. He said he needed a little man with a beard for his wax museum. All they had to say was no, for God's sake, but you know these Bolsheviks, always overreacting. I told him there was nothing shameful in being declared persona non grata in Moscow. My own Uncle Sergei - and he's a grand duke - is persona non grata’

'Yes, yes, Maestro. In any event, when His Royal Highness couldn't go with you, he grew lonely. So he telephoned Mr. J. Robespierre O'Reilly, and Mr. O'Reilly apparently asked His Royal Highness* to come and visit and play a little poker.'

'So what's that got to do with Hassan and the girls?'

'Well, Maestro, you know that sometimes when His Royal Highness the Sheikh of Abzug gets off by himself, he is, what shall I say, misunderstood?'

'And?'

'Since he is also more or less persona non grata in Moscow, Prince Hassan thought it might be a good idea to go after His Royal Highness.'

'Abdullah's not going to get into trouble in San Francisco,' Boris announced. 'Radar O'Reilly is a real square.'

'And since Prince Hassan was going, Maestro, the ladies thought they might as well go along, too.'

'What you're telling me, then, is that I really have been left alone on this dangerous airplane.'

'Well, there's the pilot, Maestro, and the copilot. And the flight engineer. And the chef. And the wine steward. And myself. And His Royal Highness has placed the airplane at your complete disposal,' the steward said. 'On our arrival in Paris, His Royal Highness' limousine and His Royal Highness’

*Mr. O'Reilly and His Royal Highness the Sheikh of Abzug became friends when the latter was more or less an uninvited guest at the former's wedding. The full details have been made public in M*A*S*H Goes to Las Vegas (Sphere Books), popularly priced.

bodyguards will of course be waiting for you, Maestro.'

'You're admitting it, then,' Boris said. ‘I have been deserted by that sawed-off camel jockey.'

The conversation was cut off at that moment. The pilot had started the engines. When Le Discorde engines started, the resulting noise and vibration was such that even the pilot and copilot had to communicate with each other by means of handheld blackboards. In the passenger compartment the vibration made even that impossible.

It was only after the aircraft had taken off and reached cruising altitude that the noise level dropped to a point where conversation was again possible. By that time, the steward, who had previous experience dealing with the maestro, had had the foresight to absent himself from the royal cabin.

Boris was thus forced to console himself with what few creature comforts he could find at hand. After putting away the little snack, he opened a second Jeroboam of Piper Heidsieck '48, put a tape recording of himself on the tape player, and then pushed a series of buttons that first caused a motion picture screen to appear on the forward cabin wall, and then a motion picture projector to start rolling. Singing along with himself, he devoted the rest of the trip to what he thought of as scientific research, his contribution to the betterment of mankind.

Specifically, he examined, with a professional, expert eye, some 16-mm color films sent to him for comment by Theosophilus Mullins Yancey, M.D. (founder and chief of staff of the T. Mullins Yancey Foundation of Manhattan, Kansas). From time to time, Boris made little entries in a notebook.

Dr. Yancey was a personal friend of the singer. They had met several years before, shortly after Dr Yancey had published his famous treatise on exercise.* In that now famous work, Dr. Yancey expounded the theory that one particular

* Sexual Intercourse As Exercise by ‘I. Mullins Yancey, M.D., Ph.D., D.D., G.V.M. (1048 pp., illustrated, $9.95), The Yancey Foundation Press, Manhattan, Kansas.

Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov had recognized the book for the work of pure genius that it was as soon as he'd read it, and he'd written to Dr. Yancey to offer his congratulations. He had mentioned that he'd independently reached the same conclusions, and, in case the doctor might find his data of value in his work, had included several examples of how something he now correctly recognized as healthy exercise had improved his art.

Dr. Yancey had at first been rather sceptical of the stories, but his curiosity had been piqued to the point where he'd made discreet inquiries. A friend in the Department of State had told him it was absolutely true that Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov, during one of his annual visits to the U.S.S.R., had indeed 'accommodated' the entire (female) corps de ballet of the Bolshoi - at least, those members of it over the age of sixteen. It was generally (if privately) admitted in diplomatic circles that it had been this accomplishment that had resulted in his being designated a Hero of the Soviet Arts. The official reason had been his performance in the title role of Boris Godunov, which had taken place the next day - knowledgeable opera buffs held the opinion that Boris' Boris had been better than Chaliapin's had ever been.

Over the years, both a professional relationship and a personal friendship had developed between the two men, and whenever Dr. Yancey's staff came up with some interesting film, an extra copy was run off to be sent to the singer for his professional evaluation.

The films Boris watched as the Le Discorde raced through the heavens toward Paris had been made, with the participants' permission,* during what is known in some quarters as 'physical congress.' The participants were those who had

* As Dr. T Mullins Yancey was wont to confess, among his professional peers, 'You wouldn't believe the weirdos we get out here.'

Once the film had been processed, it was run off before a special team of Yancey Foundation specialists - a gynecologist, a psychologist, and a contortionist. These experts then prepared a report suggesting how things could be improved. When there were unusual problems, Dr. Yancey always sent the film to Boris for his expert assessment. Other films were sent simply on the chance that Boris might be interested in them.

Three hours later, just before midnight, the Le Discorde swooped out of the sky like a drunken vulture and touched down at Paris' Orly International airfield. Although the strictest secrecy regarding Boris' travel schedule had been enforced, the word had somehow leaked out, and more than two hundred females were gathered at the field when the plane landed.

The Orly Field riot squad had, of course, been placed on standby for Boris' return. (Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov had been declared an Official Treasure of the French Republic some years before. This was both a tribute to his voice and to his ability to pack in customers at the Paris Opera. Whenever Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov sang at the Opera, it was termed a 'Performance Magnifique' and a 100-percent surcharge was imposed.)

A platoon of the riot squad had set up barriers and water hoses as a diversionary tactic, and the Korsky-Rimsakov fans had been fooled by it. They were still swarming around a remote corner of the huge field when the Le Discorde taxied right up to the main terminal building. With a precision that only long hours of practice had made possible, Boris' ground transportation swung up to the plane. First there was a Gendarmerie Nationale riot bus, from which forty stalwart, helmeted gendarmes leapt to form a corridor from the jet's steps. Next came a black Citroen limousine, bearing Corps Diplomatique license plates and flying the Royal Hussidic colors on the right front fender.

Six robed Arabs, each one bearing a silver-plated submachine gun, jumped out of the vehicle and took up positions inside the lines of gendarmes. Next a Cadillac limousine screeched to a halt. It, too, bore the Royal Hussidic coat of arms and the diplomatic license plates. Two more Arabs jumped out of this vehicle, one out of each side. The plane-side Arab held open the rear door of the Cadillac until the singer came running down the steps of the Le Discorde and jumped inside. The door was then slammed shut. The slammer and the other Arab then jumped into the front seat.

A radio signal was relayed and sirens and flashing lights on two waiting motorcycles burst into life. The limousine raced off behind them into the night.

There was a passenger in the back seat of the limousine waiting for Boris. With visible affection, he leaned over and kissed the singer wetly.

'God, I'm glad to see you, Prince,' the singer said with obvious sincerity. 'I missed you terribly in Moscow.' The passenger kissed the singer again, rather fervently.

'Christ,' the singer said. 'Have you been rooting in garbage cans again, you mangy hound? Your breath would stop a clock!' He pushed the dog, a Scottish wolfhound, off the brocade upholstery onto the floor. The animal began to whine piteously.

'Stop that, for Christ's sake!' the singer said. 'It will get you nowhere with me, and you know it!'

The dog whined even more piteously.

'Well, all right,' the singer said. 'You can get back on the seat, but for God's sake, breathe in the other direction!'

The dog climbed back on the seat, laid his head on the singer's lap, and made a growl of contentment in his throat.

'It's you and me, Prince, alone and afraid in a world we never made,' the singer said to the animal as he scratched his ears.

'To your apartment, Maestro ?' the chauffeur's voice, over the intercom, asked.

'God, no!' the singer replied. ‘I couldn't bear to stare at those bare walls all by myself. Besides, it's only midnight. Take us to the Casanova.'

'Your wish, Your Excellency,' the chauffeur replied, 'is my command.'

‘I know,' Boris replied. 'Step on it, Omar, will you? I ran out of bubbly somewhere over Poland.'

Boris had barely entered the Casanova, been shown to his table, and had his first Jeroboam of bubbly opened when there was a disturbance at the entrance.

'What do you mean, I can't go in there ?' an American voice said, in a basso very clearly as deep as Boris' basso, and in the inimitable (some say ludicrous) accents of those who have been educated at Harvard College and/or University. 'My dear fellow, I am Matthew Q. Framingham, and I go wherever I wish!'

There was a pause, during which the assistant under-manager and the manager himself, while waving their hands in the peculiar manner of the French, explained that the alcove toward which this gentleman (who, at six-feet-four and 225 pounds, was sort of a seven-eighths scale replica of Boris - less, of course, the beard) was moving was occupied by Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov, and thus was off-limits to the general public.

'Let me assure you, sir,' Mr. Framingham said, letting a bouncer who had sneaked up on him from the side have a short, but painful, thrust in the abdomen with the point of his umbrella, 'that if it were not for the presence, for reasons which escape me, of Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov in this somewhat seedy and obviously disreputable establishment of yours, I would not be here myself. I told you who I was.'

He was three-quarters of the way across the room now, close enough to alarm several members of His Royal Highness Prince Hassan's bodyguard. There was the sound of scimitars being drawn, and the oily click of submachine gun bolts being opened and closed.

Mr. Matthew Q. Framingham spotted Mr. Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov.

'Boris!' he said, somewhat peevishly. 'Will you cause these terrible people to cease and desist?'

'Matthew!' Boris said in obvious delight, getting to his feet and tossing the Jeroboam of champagne casually over his shoulder. 'Little buddy! Goddamn, I'm glad to see you!'

Arms spread wide, Boris advanced on Matthew Q. Framingham.

'The emotion is reciprocal,' Matthew said. He jabbed the manager, who was again getting closer to him than he liked, with the point of his umbrella, and then permitted himself to be embraced by Boris. Boris kissed him wetly, in the Russian manner, on each cheek, and then, wrapping him in a bear hug, lifted him off the ground.

'Goddamn, Matthew, I'm glad you're here!'

'For God's sake, Boris,' Matthew Q. Framingham said, 'put me down! Control your emotions!'

Boris did as he was ordered. He next draped his arm around Matthew's shoulder and led him to the table. Then he turned to the manager.

'Stop standing there with your mouth open and bring my little buddy something to drink,' he ordered.

The Arab bodyguard resumed their positions, smiling uneasily.

'Where are the baroness and Esmerelda ? And whats-his-name, that Arab chap?' Matthew inquired. 'The fat little fellow who flits around you like a bee pollinating?'

'In San Francisco,' Boris said. 'They left me alone and friendless. The perfidy of man never ceases to amaze me.'

'How odd,' Matthew said. He turned to glance over his shoulder and addressed the assistant under-manager. 'I suppose it would be too much to hope that you have a decent cigar?'

'Immediately, M'sieu,' the assistant under-manager said.

Prince, with a half-whine, a half-growl, and a nudge of his enormous head, made his presence known.

'Well, little doggie,' Matthew said. 'You remember me do you?' He reached out and scratched Prince's ears. The dog's tail began to wag. With one graceful sweep of his tail, he wiped the adjacent table clean of two full dinners, two wine coolers, and a twelve-candle candelabra. Matthew turned to see the source of the noise, and then picked up a crown of lamb from the floor and put it in the dog's mouth. The tail wagged again and there was the chilling sound of lamb bones crunching in Prince's enormous jaws.

'Dogs,' Boris announced solemnly, 'are fine judges of character. The last man who tried to feed Prince is still in the hospital.'

'But he knows that I like him,' Matthew said. 'And I'm sure he remembers our first meeting. He took a playful nip at me, and I bit him back. Dogs remember things like that.'

'I have just returned from Moscow,' Boris said. 'My triumphal return, however, has been marred by the callous desertion of my so-called friends.'

'I know. It was on the front page of Le Figaro' Matthew replied. 'You say that whatshisname, the Arab chap, and the ladies are in San Francisco ?'

'They left me stranded, alone, and friendless in Moscow,' Boris said.

'What an odd, unfortunate circumstance,' Matthew said. 'How's that?'

'I came here from San Francisco specifically to take advantage of your offer,' Matthew said.

'What offer was that ? What were you doing in San Francisco ? Did you see Baby Sister when you were there ?'

'I will reply to your interrogatories in reverse order,' Matthew said. 'I did indeed see your charming sibling while in the City on the Bay. I shared a rather delightful repast with her and her husband — perhaps her consort would be the more apt word - at their home.'

'And how is that little four-eyed jerk treating my baby sister?' Boris asked.

'They have found, it would appear, bliss in their marital . union,' Matthew said. ‘I confess I was quite touched by the sight of Radar* sitting on Kristina's lap, tenderly holding her left hand as she ran the fingers of her right hand lovingly through what little remains of his hair.'

'My baby sister is a saint,' Boris said, emotionally. 'What she sees in that little twerp is beyond me.'

'The second part of your multiple inquiry, if memory serves,' Matthew Q,. Framingham went on, 'was to inquire what I was doing in San Francisco.'

'Well?'

'I was there on Framingham Foundation** business,' Mr. Framingham replied. 'Oh?'

‘You are doubtless aware that it will shortly be time once again for the annual seminar on the dance,' Mr. Framingham said.

'Wouldn't miss it for the world!' Boris said immediately.

'When you get right down to it, my dear friend, parts one and two of your interrogatory are interrelated,' Matthew said. 'Specifically, I went to San Francisco to engage a particular performer for the annual seminar on the dance, one Ms. Betsy Boobs.'

'She's the one you told me about? The blonde with the fantastic jugs?'

‘I wouldn't phrase it, being a Harvard man, in quite those terms, old bean, but her mammiform development is, in essence, the foundation of her appeal.'

'And?'

'She has disappeared,' Matthew Q,. Framingham said. 'So what ?' Boris asked. 'What's one stripper, more or less, missing from the annual seminar on the dance ? Last year we

* While serving as corporal and company clerk on the 4077th MASH during the Korean Unpleasantness, Mr. J. Robespierre O'Reilly became known as 'Radar' after it became known that he was telepathic on occasion and could sometimes read minds.

** Mr. Framingham here referred to the Matthew Q.. Framingham Theosophical Foundation of Cambridge, Mass., which was founded in 1863 for the furtherance of philosophy, science, and theology, and of which he was executive secretary.

had eighteen, didn't we? Including the triplets?'

'Joan, Jeanne, and Josephine,' Matthew recalled. 'Six times the pleasure, six times the fun. They will be back, of course.'

"Then what's so special about Betsy Boobs?' Boris asked.

'To get right to the crux of the matter, old chap, I am rather infatuated with the lady.'

'Not again, Matthew!' Boris said. 'I've told you and told you, don't become infatuated with strippers!'

'I can't help myself,' Matthew said. 'It is the cross I must bear on my path through life.'

'You know what happened the last time,' Boris said.

'What do you mean ?'

'That brewer's daughter with the strange name ...'

'Monica P. Fenstermacher, you mean?'

'She broke off her engagement to you because you were hung up on some stripper.'

'That was time before last,' Matthew said. 'Last time ... I'd rather not talk about last time.'

'You should have learned your lesson by now,' Boris said righteously.

'You're a fine one to talk, you with your Esmerelda,' Matthew said.

'Esmerelda is a hoofer,'* Boris said. 'There's a difference.'

'Esmerelda- prances around on a stage in very little clothing,' Matthew said. "The only significant difference I can see between your Esmerelda and my Betsy Boobs is that the music is different.'

'Maybe you have a point,' Boris said. 'How did you meet this one ?'

'I was out in San Francisco about a year ago,' Matthew said. 'And I just happened to drop in to this little place for a bite to eat and a moment's quiet reflection.'

* The reference here is to Esmerelda Hoffenburg, the ballerina. By 'hoofer,' Boris meant that she danced on the legitimate stage rather than in strip joints.

'What little place?'

'Sadie Shapiro's Strip Joint,' Matthew said. 'To be precise.'

'And she was there ?'

'She was there,' Matthew said. 'I fought it, Boris. You have to believe that. I told myself that sort of thing was all behind me, that it was a thing from my past, that if I ever hoped to regain Miss Monica P. Fenstermacher as my fiancée, I would have to put all the thoughts I was having from my mind.'

'And?'

'It didn't work,' Matthew said. 'When I got back to Cambridge, I just couldn't put her from my mind. I began to send her little tokens of my esteem.'

'Such as?'

'Flowers, candy, that sort of thing. Little trinkets.' 'How often ?'

‘I didn't sign my name. I just had them include a card saying "From an admirer." ' 'How often, Matthew?' 'Once a day,' Matthew said.

'You sent her flowers, or a box of candy, or a little trinket every single day?'

'Flowers and candy and a little trinket every day,' Matthew said. 'But I didn't sign my name. I didn't want to overwhelm her, to frighten the little dove away.'

'And?'

'Finally, I couldn't live with it any longer. I told myself that all I was doing was getting one more performer for the annual seminar on the dance, but in my heart of hearts, I knew that it was more than that, that I would declare myself as soon as I saw her again.'

'So what happened ?'

'When I got to San Francisco, I went there immediately. I mean, of course, after I checked into the Mark Hopkins and changed clothes, and after I went by the Harvard Club. But as soon as humanly possible.'

'And she wasn't there? So what? They change jobs all the time.'

'I'm well aware of that,' Matthew said. It came to his attention then that the two Jeroboams of Piper Heidsieck '48 from which he and Boris had been sipping were empty. He summoned the manager.

'I would like some whiskey,' he said. ‘I am in no mood at all to drink nothing but champagne.'

'Neither am I,' Boris said. 'Bring us each a bottle or two of whiskey.'

'As I was saying,' Matthew went on, 'I thought it was simply a case of her having accepted another position. So I got in touch with her agent, and he told me that he had no idea where she was, that shortly after I had seen her, she had simply vanished from the face of the earth.'

'You suspect foul play ?'

'I checked that out, too. She has not been hospitalized, arrested, or gone to that great runway in the sky.'

Boris thought of one more possibility, but kept it to himself in deference to his friend's sensitivities.

'Neither,' Matthew said, making Boris wonder if Matthew was reading his mind, 'has she taken out a marriage license. I checked that, too.'

'Well, is there any way I can help ?'

'I did think you might have some idea how I should proceed, Boris. You're more experienced in these matters than lam.'

'My experience, little buddy, is in running away from women, not after them.'

'You have no suggestion to offer?'

'Indeed I do,' Boris said as the waiter appeared with two half-gallons of Old Highland Dew Straight Scotch Whiskey. 'Drink hearty.'

'What else is there to do ?' Matthew said, reaching for his half-gallon. 'Betsy Boobs is lost to me forever.'

At two the next afternoon, Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov was wakened from a sound sleep by a strange annoying sound, part buzzing and part ringing.

'What in the hell is that awful noise?' he inquired rather loudly. There was no answer. After a moment, he recalled that he was quite alone in Paris, the miserable little camel jockey having run off to San Francisco with his cercle intime the moment his back was turned.

He groaned mightily and then sat up in bed. The dawn, as they say, came.

'It's the goddamned telephone,' he announced. 'That's what it is.' He wondered, aloud, why no one had the common decency to answer it, and only moments afterward recalled, again, that he was deserted and quite alone and that, among other horrors, he was faced with the very real prospect of having to answer his own telephone. God alone, he mused, knows what fool is on the other end of the line, daring to disturb the rest of the world's greatest opera singer.

He picked up the telephone.

'Is this Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov, also known as El Noil Snoil the Magnificent?' 'Who wants to know?'

This is the San Francisco, California, overseas operator, sir. I have a call for the guy with all those funny names from some nut who says he's calling for the Sheikh of Abzug. I was tempted to hang up on him, but I figured, what the hell, Ma Bell can use the money.'

'Put him on,' Boris said.

'It's collect, honey,' the operator said.

'Then it must be Abdullah,' Boris said.* 'Hey, Abdullah, how they hanging?'

'I am afraid that I have been a bad boy again, El Noil Snoil,' His Royal Highness said.

'What now, Abdullah?'

* From this point on, the conversation was carried on in Abzugian. It has been translated into English for those readers unfamiliar with that language, and also because no known type face is available for the printing of Abzugian, which consists in the main of grunts, wheezes, snorts, and a belch-like sound of exclamation.

'At first things went well. I saw your sister, and then I played poker with Radar and his friends.'

'You didn't lose your temper again, did you, Abdullah ? I told you it was a no-no to use your scimitar on people just because you lose.'

'I was winning,' His Royal Highness replied. 'That makes the source of the difficulty.'

'What difficulty?'

‘I laid a full house - aces over three kings - on the table, and as you taught me, El Noil Snoil, I recited the sacred, time-honored words, "Read 'em and weep, you bastards" - and then the skinny little gentleman was suddenly stricken with a very bad cough.'

'What skinny little gentleman?'

'A person named Colonel Whiley.'

'Well, some guys are good losers and some aren't. My experience has been that if you scratch a colonel, you get a lousy loser. So what?'

'Well, the other gentlemen, two doctors, were very upset about the whole thing, and they called for an ambulance and carried him away.'

'Sometimes there are no lengths to which colonels will not go to get out of paying up, Abdullah,' Boris philosophized. 'But on the other hand, maybe he was sick. The question is, why tell me ?'

'It is a sacred Abzugian custom, El Noil Snoil, that when someone falls ill at your table, you care for him.'

'That wasn't your table, it was Radar's,' Boris replied.

'But my aces over kings made him sick,' the sheikh countered. 'It is therefore my responsibility. And I can't find Radar.'

'Where are you?'

'In a small set of rooms in someplace called the Mark Hopkins,' the sheikh replied.

'Well, don't worry about it,' Boris replied. 'I will personally handle everything.'

'You will?'

'Yes, I will. I'll get in touch with Hassan and have him pay the little guy's bill. What was that name again ?' 'Whiley.'

'My advice to you is to come back to Paris,' Boris said. ‘I could not do that until this matter is resolved.' ‘Whatever you say, Abdullah,' Boris replied. 'I'll get back to you.'

'If I am not here, you may reach me at one of the local temples,' the sheikh said. 'Local temples ?'

'There is this place called Sadie Shapiro's Strip Joint,' the sheikh said. 'I have rented it, girls and all, for as long as I will be here.'

'I seem to have heard that name someplace before,' Boris said. 'It sounds very nice, Abdullah, and if I hadn't pushed myself to the very edge of exhaustion giving my artistic all to the Russian masses, I might even join you. But I need my rest. Have a good time.'

'Mud in your eye, my friend,' the sheikh said, courteously closing the conversation in English. The phone went dead.

Boris looked at the telephone a moment, and then dialed a number from memory.

'The Embassy of His Most Islamic Majesty, the Sheikh of Hussid,' a foreign-sounding voice answered.

'This is Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov,' Boris said. ‘I have just had a telephone call from San Francisco. I want you to get in touch with Prince Hassan, and tell him that Abdullah, his royal nibs, made somebody sick at a poker game, and that he'd better pay his bill. Got that ?' He did not wait for a reply. He dropped the phone on its hook.

'God, the sacrifices I make every day for my fellow man!' he said.

He closed his eyes. In a moment, he was sound asleep again, his snores causing the crystal pendants on the chandeliers to rattle softly.

CHAPTER SIX

Prince, who slept on an enormous red goatskin hassock (which had previously been in the harem of the Sheikh of Abzug, where Boris had seen it, admired it, and been made a present of it) placed near the foot of his master's bed, suddenly sat up, perked up his ears, moved with grace from the hassock to the side of the bed, and lapped his master's face with an enormous sandpapery tongue.

Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov, feeling Prince's loving, abrasive tongue on his face, woke with a groan and swung a massive fist at the dog, who nimbly avoided it, and then playfully pulled the covers off his master with his teeth.

'That's all I need!' Boris said. He thought that over. 'What I really need is a cold shower!' he added. 'Early to bed and early to rise, as I always say!'

Moving with exquisite care, so as not to disturb his brain (which was apparently rolling around inside his cranium like a bowling ball), he rose from his bed, and, supporting himself by holding onto the wall, made his way to the bath.

The bathroom had been a little gift to the world's greatest opera singer from His Royal Highness, Sheikh Abdullah ben Abzug. Where Boris had previously had to make do with a tub, a shower, a sink, and what the British call a w.c, like the rest of us, as a result of the sheikh's little gift he now had a sunken tub fifteen feet by twenty feet, from the center of which rose a gold-plated statue of a naked lady astride a dolphin. A stream from the dolphin's mouth served as the tub's source of water, the temperature and flow of which could be controlled by raising and lowering controls cleverly concealed in (more accurately, perhaps, disguised as) the naked lady's most obvious anatomical characteristics.

The walls and ceiling of the room were covered by etched mirrors; the etchings had been executed by a Czech ernigr6 to the United States who had chosen as his theme the last days of the Pompeian baths. Separate rooms, hidden behind mirrored doors, provided access to water closets and other plumbing apparati. There were three such facilities - one for men, one for ladies, and one reserved for Boris. In this last, the apparati were somewhat oversized and were placed somewhat higher off the ground than is normal.

There were a sauna and a massage table too, of course. Taking a leaf from the Japanese notebook on comfort while bathing, a shower stall, with separate drainage facilities and eight shower heads, was off to one side.

Taps set into one wall of the bathroom dispensed beer, wine, soda water, and the bather's choice of Scotch, bourbon, cognac, or gin. A gold-plated object patterned after a Venetian funeral urn circulated iced water to cool champagne bottles. (The glasses, of course, as a safety measure were all plastic. A rack to dispense them, a la Dixie cups, was mounted to the side of the taps.)

Boris reached the bathroom and stepped inside. Steeling himself for the effort, he stripped out of his silken dressing gown. He put his arms out to his sides, took a deep breath, and rushed to the bathtub, intending to enter the pool in a swan-dive. In his condition, unfortunately, his sense of balance was a bit off, and he entered the water sidewards. An enormous wave washed over the sides of the tub, splashed against the mirrored walls and receded. The automatic water-level and temperature sensing controls were fooled by the wave, and the dolphin's mouth began to spit out a thick stream of water.

Boris came to the surface. The shock had brought him partly, but not entirely, to his senses. He floated quietly in the tub, grimacing at the noise of Prince's barking. Prince didn't like his master to leave him, but neither did he like the water. While he made up his mind what to do about it, he barked excitedly. The sound reverberated painfully off the mirrored walls and against Boris' eardrums.

Finally, choosing the side of loyalty over personal comfort,

Prince leapt with a great bound into the tub, and swam (rather ungracefully, it must be reported) toward his beloved master.

Boris felt the splash and raised his head.

'Get out of my bathtub, you stupid mutt!' he bellowed.

In both exhaling and moving around, the singer lost buoyancy. He sank beneath the lightly scented waters of his tub. In a moment, he bobbed up again. Prince was standing up in the shallow end of the tub, looking at him with boundless love, his huge tail splashing water with each swing. And then Boris saw something else.

'What the hell?' Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov said. He shook his head as if to clear a mirage from his vision, and looked again at the corner of the bathroom in which the eight-headed shower stall stood. The apparition, or whatever it was, was still there. Standing under the flowing water of the shower was a rather handsome young man, quite naked. The index finger of his right hand was extended, and with it he poked in rapt fascination at his lower abdomen, about four inches above the junction of his legs.

'Who the hell are you?' Boris demanded. 'And what are you doing in my bathroom? And stop whatever obscene gesture it is you're making! Prince is still a pup!'

'Good morning, Cher Maestro!' the young man said, in rather oddly accented French. 'I trust you slept well ?'

At that moment, one of the mirrored doors opening onto the bathroom opened. A rather chubby female face, the kind that generally accompanies the body of females described by those friends and relatives who wish to pair them off with unsuspecting new acquaintances as a 'barrel of laughs,' appeared at the edge of the door, said 'Ooops!' and 'Excuse me' and finally (and somewhat reluctantly, Boris thought) withdrew.

'Who the hell was that?' Boris asked. 'And how dare she peer into my bathroom?'

'That's Imogene,' the naked young man said. He poked again at his abdomen.

'I hope she saw what you're doing,' Boris said. 'Perhaps it will scare her away.' He thought about that a moment, and changed his mind. 'On second thought, it will probably drive her wild. So knock it off!'

He collected, as well as he was able, his thoughts. For the first time, he remembered that he had met Matthew Q. Framingham the previous-evening.

'Framingham!' he bellowed, in the same voice that had less than twenty-four hours before caused the crystal pendants in the chandeliers of the Bolshoi Opera to rattle.

In the dining room of the apartment, Mr. Matthew Q,. , Framingham, who had chosen to retire for the evening under the Louis XVI dining table Boris had borrowed from the Palace of Versailles, was suddenly brought from a deep sleep by Boris' voice. He sat up as if someone had applied a cattle prod to his rear. Since the distance from his waist to the top of his head was greater than the distance between the floor and the bottom of the table, this served to give him a nasty crack on the head. As quickly as he had sat up, he lay down again, quite unconscious.

When there was no answer to his first summons, or his second, or his third, Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov rose from his bath like a surfacing whale, wrapped a towel around his loins, and stalked through the apartment. As he passed through the dining room, he saw Matthew Q. Fram-ingham's size 12 D black wingtips sticking out from under the table. He reached down and grabbed both of them, pulling Mr. Framingham into sight.

'It'll do you no good to try to hide under there, you overgrown stripper freak!' he said, somewhat petulantly. 'What have you done to me ? How come there's a naked man in my bathroom and a fat lady named Imogene staring shamelessly at me while I bathe ?'

Matthew Q,. Framingham, who was unconscious, of course, did not reply.

'My God!' Boris said. 'He's dead!'

Matthew Q,. Framingham groaned.

'If not dead, then dying!' Boris corrected himself. He snatched the telephone from the serving table and dialed a number.

'The Embassy of His Most Islamic Majesty, the Sheikh of Hussid,' a voice with a British accent said.

'This is Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov,' the singer said. 'Is that you, Omar?'

'Good afternoon, Maestro,' the chargé d'affaires said. 'How may I be of service?'

'Get your ass in high gear,' Boris replied. 'Get over here with an ambulance and the best medical attention you can find.'

'I hear and obey, Maestro,' the chargé d'affaires replied. 'Where is here ?'

'My apartment,' Boris said. 'Hurry!' He slammed the phone down in its cradle. Then he bent over Matthew Q,. Framingham and rather tenderly picked him up and carried him into his bedroom. He laid him gently on the bed.

'Whatever happened is obviously your fault, not mine,' Boris said to the unconscious figure. 'However, if you really do croak, I'll never hear the end of it.'

'Is something wrong, Maestro?' the young man asked, coming into the room. He had a towel wrapped around his middle.

'I think he's dying,' Boris said.

The young man went quickly to Matthew Q,. Framingham and put his ear to his chest.

'What the hell are you doing?' Boris asked. 'His heart seems all right,' the young man said. 'Are you a doctor?'

'In the monastery of St. Igor, I was sometimes permitted to help the medical brothers in their work,' the young man said.

Matthew groaned again. And there came, ever so faintly, the sound of sirens.

'Hi, there!' the lady named Imogene said. 'Can I help?'

'Get out!' Boris shouted. 'Can't you recognize a death bed when you see one?'

The sound of both the approaching sirens and Matthew's groans grew louder. And finally, as the sound of the sirens suddenly died (indicating that the siren-bearing vehicles had reached their destination) and the sound of running feet on the steps could be heard, Matthew Q,. Framingham opened one eye. He saw Boris standing over him and closed it.

'At the risk of being thought an unappreciative guest, old chap, I really do wish you would go away and come back later,' he said. ‘I am in no condition whatever to attempt to get out of bed, much less to continue our revelry.'

There was the sound of knocking at the apartment door, and Boris rushed to it.

Sheikh Omar ben Abdullah, charge' d'affaires of the Royal Hussidic Embassy, stood, somewhat out of breath, at the door, accompanied by two rather distinguished-looking French gentlemen in their middle years. Behind them stood four ambulance attendants bearing a stretcher.

'Are you all right, Maestro?' the chargé d'affaires asked with deep concern. 'If anything happens to you while His Royal Highness is gone, he will never forgive me.'

'Forgive you? He'd cut your head off, that's what he'd do! But it's not me. It's my dear and good friend Matthew Q. Framingham. He's in there.' He pointed to the bedroom door. 'Wait a minute,' he said. 'Who are these guys?'

'Maestro, may I present Dr. Pierre St. Pierre, chief of staff of the Paris Municipal Hospital?'

'Enchanté, Maestro,' Dr. Pierre said.

'And Dr. Francois de la Rougepied, professor of social diseases of the University of Paris.'

'There's not a moment to be lost,' Boris said, grabbing the medical gentlemen by the arms and propelling them toward the bedroom.

'It is a great honor, Maestro, to be of service to you,' Dr. de la Rougepied said in French.

'Sorry to disappoint you, Doc.,' Boris said. 'But as I said, it's not me. It's my l'il buddy, Framingham.'

'And what seems to be wrong with him?' Omar asked.

'How the hell should I know ?' Boris said. "That's what the docs are here for.' He thrust open the door and gestured at the bed. 'There he is, Doc'

Matthew Q. Framingham was now fully awake, if still a little groggy. He attempted to sit up in the bed.

'Let me help you!' the young man in the towel said, and he did so, bending over the bed and lifting Matthew to a semi-erect position against the headboard.

Dr. Pierre St. Pierre and Dr. de la Rougepied both examined Mr. Framingham, and then exchanged glances, nods, and profound grunts.

'Maestro,' Dr. de la Rougepied began.

'Zair is no-zing wrong wiff your fren,' Dr. St. Pierre picked up.

'He has giff himself, what you zay, one hell of a crack on zee head,' Dr. de la Rougepied continued.

'And he has, of course, one hell of a hang-ovair,' Dr. St. Pierre went on.

'But no-zing zat requires zee services of a docteur,' Rougepied concluded.

'Thank God!' Boris said.

'On zee ozair hand,' Dr. Rougepied said.

'Zeez young man is, what you say, a horze of zee other color,' Dr. St. Pierre said, pointing at the young man in the towel.

'What the hell are you talking about?' Boris asked. 'I happened to look under his towel,' Dr. de la Rougepied said.

'God, your kind are all over!'

'An' I call what I zee to zee attention of my colleague,' Rougepied went on.

'And I zee zee zame zing,' St. Pierre added.

'Couple of lousy voyeurs,' Boris said. 'Thank God I have my pants on, otherwise you two would be uncontrollable.'

'And what we zee is obviously what you call an inguinal hernia,' Dr. de la Rougepied said.

'My God!' Boris said. ‘I must think of my public! Exactly how contagious is that, Doctor?'

'It is what you call zee rapture' Dr. St. Pierre said.

‘I believe the word you seek, sir,' Sheikh Abdullah said, 'is rupture, not rapture.'

'Ruptured,' Dr. de la Rougepied said in French. 'And recently, too. He has obviously picked up an enormous load within the past twelve hours.'

‘I really don't care, when you get right to it,' Boris said. ‘I don't even know who the hell he is.'

'Boris, your conduct is unspeakable!' Matthew Q. Framingham said. 'Have you no small shred of appreciation, much less gratitude, for what this young man has done for you ?'

'Huh?'

'That enormous load to which the doctor refers ?' 'What about it?'

'It was you,' Matthew said. 'This splendid young chap carried you in here last night.'

'I never saw this guy in my life until he showed up in my bathroom and started making obscene gestures at my dog!' Boris said. He looked at the young man, who was again prodding his abdomen with his finger. 'See, there he goes again!'

'When one is suffairing from zee inguinal hernia,' Dr. de la Rougepied said, 'zee symptom one zees first is zee bulge in zee lower abdomen. Zat is what he is doing now. It is of no avail. Everytime he push it in, it will pop out again.'

'What has any of this to do with me ?' Boris said. 'I never saw this guy before!'

'But, Boris, you did!' Matthew said. 'Don't you remember being in the Casanova last night ?'

'Of course I do,' Boris said. 'I remember quite clearly giving you wise fatherly counsel about this stripteaser fetish of yours.'

'And you do recall the balalaika player ?'

'Of course I do,' Boris said. 'He was, as I recall, superb.'

'And do you remember asking him to join us ?'

'Of course I do. What are you leading up to, Framingham ?'

'And taking him with us, when we were asked to leave the Casanova, to the Ritz Bar?'

'How could I possibly forget something like that? The balalaika player was a great musical artist.'

'I'm glad you remember that,' Framingham said, 'because you will then probably remember that after we were asked to leave the Ritz Bar—'

'We were asked to leave the Ritz Bar?' Boris asked incredulously.

'That was after you were challenged to a duel by that Argentinian chap who felt you were paying undue attention to his wife.'

'I offended someone's wife?' Boris asked. 'Impossible.' 'She wasn't offended,' Matthew said. 'That's better,' Boris said.

'But her husband objected when you suggested that the two of you get a room and, as you somewhat indelicately put it, give the ol' springs a workout.'

'I'm sure you're mistaken,' Boris said.

'He said he would send his seconds to see you this afternoon,' Matthew said, 'but we digress. After we left the Ritz, we went to Harry's Bar, and there you told the balalaika player that, being the greatest one of all, you recognized a musical genius whenever you saw one.'

'I recall something of that,' Boris said.

'And you told him that his problems—'

'What problems?'

'He is alone and penniless in Paris.'

'Oh.'

'Were over. That you would make him your protegé and get him a scholarship.'

'I said that, did I ?' Boris said. 'Well, if I said it, I must have meant it. Abdullah?'

'Yes, El Noil Snoil the Magnificent?'

'Get this young man's name, and tell Hassan I said to give him a scholarship.'

'Of course, El Noil Snoil.'

'And once that was out of the way, we went to the American Legion,' Matthew Q. Framingham said. 'Do you remember that?'

'Not too clearly,' Boris confessed. 'It had been a trying day.'

'Well, we went to the American Legion,' Matthew Q. Framingham said. 'There we met Imogene.'

‘Imogene ?' Boris asked. 'Who the hell is Imogene ?'

'Did I hear someone call me ?' the chubby lady said, peeking around the door.

'Out! Out!' Boris cried. 'Have you no decency? Can't you see that this young man is virtually at death's door?' He then turned to Matthew Q. Framingham. 'Get out of the bed and let this guy lie down, Matthew! That's the trouble with you Harvard types. Always thinking about yourselves!'

'You suggested to Imogene and her friend—'

'My God, there's more than one?'

'Two,' Matthew said. 'They're from Chillicothe, Ohio.'

'I am beginning to suspect, Matthew, that you took advantage of my innocent nature and got me drunk again,' Boris said. 'You should really be ashamed of yourself, Matthew.'

'Well, when we got here, you were asleep.'

'No surprise. I was exhausted. Didn't I tell you that I had come to Paris directly from a triumphal performance in Moscow? And that I had very nearly been starved to death in Moscow?'

'In any event, when we reached here, you were unconscious. And this splendid young man carried you upstairs, obviously rupturing himself in the process.'

'That simply goes to show what happens to people who butt in,' Boris said. 'Carrying me upstairs is the responsibility of Hassan's bodyguard. Where the hell were they?'

'They were protecting you from the brothers of the lady from Argentina,' Matthew said. They had followed us all the way to the American Legion. We had to go out by the back door.'

'Well, at least they were meeting their responsibilities,' Boris said. 'Which is more than I can say for you, Matthew. Why didn't you carry me upstairs?'

'I was somewhat hors de combat myself,' Matthew confessed. 'As a matter of fact it was necessary for Imogene and her friend to assist me.'

'And this little guy,' Boris said, examining the young man closely, 'actually carried me up three flights of stairs?'

'My pleasure, dear Boris,' the young man said.

There is simply nothing beyond us musical geniuses, is there ?' Boris said. 'And never let it be said that Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov doesn't pay his debts. First things first, however. Abdullah, where is die bodyguard ?'

'They are outside, El Noil Snoil,' Abdullah replied.

'Have them escort the ladies to their hotel,' Boris said. 'Or anywhere else they might wish to go. But get them out of here. Whatever will my neighbors think?'

'Your wish is my command, El Noil Snoil,' Abdullah replied.

'And don't you forget it,' Boris said. He turned to Dr. de la Rougepied. 'You say this fellow has a hernia ?' 'Yes, Maestro,' the doctor replied in French. 'How does one treat a hernia ?'

'With surgery, Maestro,' Dr. de la Rougepied replied. 'He will require surgery. But have no fear, Maestro. I have a colleague who is professor of surgery at the University of Paris Medical School. He will, I am sure, consider it an honor to attend to any friend of our Cher Boris, the world's greatest opera singer.'

'Well, I'm sure he would,' Boris replied. 'But if you think I'm going to let some French chancre-mechanic put a knife to my benefactor and protégé think again!'

'I beg pardon, Maestro?'

'Omar, you did bring an ambulance?'

Two, Maestro,' the charge" d'affaires replied. 'Just in case., 'Have this lad loaded aboard one,' Boris ordered. 'Gentle, now, he gave his all for me. Greater love hath no man, so to speak, than to rupture himself helping Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov in his hour of need.'

'I'll call the hospital and reserve a room,' Dr. de la Rougepied said.

'Nothing personal, Doc,' Boris said, 'but nothing is too good for this young musical genius and protege of mine.'

‘I don't quite follow you,' Dr. de la Rougepied said.

There's no such thing as second-best,' Boris replied. 'And Pancho here gets the best.' He picked up the telephone. 'Operator, connect me with Dr. Benjamin Franklin Pierce at the Spruce Harbor Medical Center in Maine.' He covered the phone with his hand. 'Call the airport, Abdullah, and have the engines started!'

CHAPTER SEVEN

When it was three-thirty in the afternoon in Paris, it was half-past ten in the morning in Spruce Harbor, Maine. When the telephone rang in the office of the chief of surgery, that luminary, dressed in fresh surgical greens, was in his office taking a brief rest between what it is now chic to refer to as surgical procedures (formerly known as 'operations,' which should, by all rules of logic, be known as 'cutting, tying and sewing-ups').

The previous surgical procedure had been one known to the layman and to Dr. Pierce as 'jerking a gall-bladder,' a fairly routine thing to occur under Dr. Pierce's scalpel. The jerking in question, however, had been an unusual one, posing certain problems and requiring certain out-of-the-ordinary steps.

So, instead of spending his restbreak as it was his custom to - sipping on black coffee and keeping up with the latest anatomical developments (as published in Penthouse and such other magazines of the literary and cultural establishment) - Dr. Pierce was spending it sipping on black coffee and explaining what had happened in the operating room to Student Nurse Barbara Ann Miller.

It was not his custom to take student nurses under hjs wing, but Barbara Ann Miller was, in Dr. Pierce's professional opinion (which was shared by Dr. McIntyre and chief of nursing services Esther Flanagan), that rara avis, a young woman with an obvious potential for becoming one hell of a good operating-room nurse.

Student Nurse Miller, who would graduate in June, had come to the Spruce Harbor Medical Center as a transfer student from the Ms. Prudence MacDonald Memorial School of Nursing of New Orleans, La. Her transcript of grades had born a notation from the Reverend Mother Superior Bernadette of Lourdes, M.D., F.A.C.S., chief of staff of the Gates of Heaven Hospital of New Orleans, to the effect that it was her personal judgement that Miss Miller showed the potential to become one hell of an operating-room nurse.

Student Nurse Miller had not begun her nursing education at Gates of Heaven, either, but rather at San Francisco's Pacific General Hospital. The details of her transfer from San Francisco to New Orleans and then to Spruce Harbor were a carefully kept secret, known only to the Reverend Mother Superior Bernadette of Lourdes, Doctors Pierce and McIntyre; Esther Flanagan, R.N.; and Margaret Houlihan Wachauf Wilson, R.N., chief of nursing instruction of the Ms. Prudence MacDonald Memorial School of Nursing.

There was more to Margaret H. W. Wilson, R.N., the chief of nursing instruction at the Ms. Prudence MacDonald Memorial School of Nursing, than her name implied. The nursing school occupied but half her time, professionally speaking. Like the Reverend Mother Superior Bernadette of Lourdes, M.D., F.A.C.S., of Gates of Heaven, Nurse Wilson divided her professional life between medicine and the church.

It was not, however, the same church. Nurse Wilson was associated with the God Is Love In All Forms Christian Church, Inc., which had been founded in San Francisco, California, several years before by her late husband, the Reverend Buck Wilson, as a churchly refuge for those who, for one reason or another, did not feel quite at home, or comfortable, or even welcome, in any of the then-established persuasions.*

* The Official History of the God Is Love in All Forms Christian Church, Inc., for those interested in what is described as 'the new theology,' is available from the Headquarters Temple, GILIAFCC, Inc., 209 Bourbon Street, New Orleans, La. 70007 for $49-95 (illustrated, with hymnal). Those either pressed for funds or interested in a somewhat more objective view of the organization will find it described with some skill and style in M*A*S*H Goes to New Orleans, M*A*S*H Goes to Paris, and M*A*S*H Goes to Las Vegas (Sphere Books). The GILIAFCC, Inc., offers a thirty-five-percent discount to the clergy, divinity students, and bona fide theological scholars. Sphere Books does not.

Shortly after Buck Wilson's untimely and premature passing,* his widow was named by the founding disciples of the church to the newly created position of Reverend Mother Emeritus. Although her position as such was first thought of as purely ceremonial, the Widow Wilson quickly assumed a genuine role of leadership within the church hierarchy. Within a matter of months, it was generally conceded that she and she alone held the reins, and held them a good deal more firmly than her late husband ever had.**

It was she, for example, who had flatly forbidden the God Is Love in All Forms Christian Church, Inc., all-male a capella choir to wear eyeshadow and lipstick, and had made the prohibition stick.

In addition to her administrative skills and a hitherto repressed and unused maternal understanding and compassion for what she came to think of as 'her boys,' Margaret Houlihan Wachauf*** Wilson brought to GILIAFCC, Inc., a certain presence and image.

The years had been kind to her, physically speaking. She was an imposing lady, made even more imposing by her churchly vestments. These had been designed for her as a joint effort by two of the founding disciples who happened to be designers of lady's high-fashion clothing. Over a silver lam6 gown with a rather low-cut bodice, the official

* The Reverend Buck Wilson expired of heart failure (said to be brought about by exhaustion) on the nuptial couch. While there is some controversy concerning this, the death mask (copies of which, in Durastone, are available from the Headquarters Temple, GILIAFCC, Inc., at $11.95 - $ 15.95 in goldplate) made at the time show him to be smiling.

** The Reverend Wilson is reliably reported to have suffered from a limp wrist, and this possibly had some bearing on the problem.

*** Rev. Mother Emeritus Margaret Wilson was also the widow of the late Mr. Isadore Wachauf, founder and chairman of Wachauf Metal Recycling Corporation, International (formerly Izzy's junkyard). He had come to an early, tragic, and somewhat messy end shortly after their marriage when the electric power failed as Mr. Wachauf was standing under and examining an electromagnetic hoist in one of his yards. The electromagnet had been holding twenty tons of crushed automobiles when the juice went off.

Her headgear was based on the cappa magna made popular by bishops of the Roman Catholic Church. The Rev. Mother Emeritus Wilson was a very close personal friend of His Eminence John Joseph Mulcahy, titular Archbishop of Swengchan, a member of what is somewhat irreverently referred to as 'the Pope's Kitchen Cabinet,' whom she had first met when both were assigned to the 4077th MASH during the Korean War. (His Eminence had then been but a lowly priest and Army chaplain.) While visiting the archbishop in his apartment in Rome, she had playfully donned his cappa magna, and had instantly seen what it could signify to her flock.

So as not to be confused with a cleric of the Roman persuasion, the Reverend Mother Emeritus' cappa magna was chartreuse, rather than off-white, and - at no small expense -the flat surfaces, front and rear, had been cleverly wired so that the timeless truth 'God Is Love' flashed on and off at five-second intervals, utilizing small red, white, and blue neon bulbs to spell out the letters.

On her left-hand ring finger, the Reverend Mother Emeritus wore a forty-two-carat square-cut diamond ring that had been presented to her by His Royal Highness Sheikh Abdullah ben Abzug as a small token of his appreciation for her having established the nursing and midwifery services of the Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov Memorial Lying-in Hospital in Abzug's capital. It had become the custom of the GILIAFCC, Inc., for both senior church officials (such as the founding disciples) and new recruits to kiss the Star of Abzug, as the diamond was known, as a symbol of their recognition of Reverend Mother Emeritus as their shepherdess. (On such ceremonial occasions, the Reverend Mother Emeritus also carried the traditional ecclesiastical symbol of the churchly shepherd, a shepherd's crook - in other words, a pole with a curved-over top end.)

And finally, the Reverend Mother Emeritus wore - suspended from a stout gold chain about her neck - another cross, the vertical member approximately ten inches long, with the words 'Mother' and 'Emeritus' spelled out in diamonds, and the word 'Reverend' spelled out in square-cut rubies. The dimensions of the cross and its weight usually caused the Reverend Mother Emeritus' bosoms to be brought into prominence as the chain dipped into the valley between them. While most of the Reverend Mother Emeritus' good works took place in New Orleans, Louisiana, at the Headquarters Temple of the GILIAFCC, Inc., she participated in the four annual pilgrimages. Of these, the most important was the 'Back to the Beginning Pilgrimage' to San Francisco, California.

It had been at a table in Finocchio's Restaurant in San Francisco that the man now known as the blessed Brother Buck had held The First Supper, at which he and the twelve founding disciples had brought the God Is Love in All Forms Christian Church, Inc., to life. The Blessed Brother Buck, who before the call had been one of San Francisco's most sought-after male models and escorts, had come to the prayerful conclusion that it was his duty to found a church for those whom other organized religious bodies ignored or condemned vigorously.

To quote from the Official History: 'The first dozen members, known as the founding disciples, included a fine artist, two hairdressers, a writer, two ballet dancers, a male model, two interior decorators, and the quarterback and two defensive tackles of the San Francisco Gladiators professional football team.'

Shortly after its organization, partly because the Blessed Brother Buck (possibly in error) thought New Orleans would provide a more fertile field for his missionary labors than San Francisco, and partly because the move was encouraged and financially underwritten by two affluent new converts, International Headquarters was moved to the Crescent City. Two founding disciples (one of the defensive tackles and the writer, who had just signed a long-term lease on what they described as a 'darling' apartment) remained behind to establish the First Missionary Church of GILIAFCC, Inc. Annually, the 'Back to the Beginning Pilgrimage' was made, headed by the Blessed Brother Buck and, later, by his widow.

Over the years, this most important pilgrimage had become a rather elaborate affair. There were welcoming ceremonies at the airport when the Reverend Mother Emeritus, her entourage, the Founding Disciples who could make it, and the GILIAFCC, Inc., all-male a capella choir arrived.

A motorcade to First Church, as it was popularly known, followed the welcoming ceremonies. The same evening, a Memorial First Supper was held in Finocchio's Restaurant, following which there was a procession through the San Francisco entertainment district to the Embarcadero. Led by Papa Louis' Old-Time New Orleans Dixieland Jazz Band, the procession included the Reverend Mother Emeritus - in full regalia - sitting in a gilt-covered chair (which was borne on the shoulders of twelve of the more muscular devotees), and the a capella choir. The faithful and their friends brought up the rear.

As the procession proceeded along the streets, with the Old-Time Jazz Band playing 'We Will Gather At The River,' 'Amazing Grace,' 'There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight,' and other such inspirational numbers, the Reverend Mother Emeritus alternately raised her hand in blessing and threw gold-plated coin-shaped discs (patterned after New Orleans' famous Mardi Gras doubloons) bearing the likeness of the Blessed Brother Buck to the cheering multitudes.

From time to time, the procession would leave the streets and pass through one or more commercial enterprises along the route. A number of converts had been made in this way. There was something magical, in a circus sense, about the procession, and joining the procession (which was generally-held around midnight) often struck many lost souls as far more promising than remaining hung over a bar stool watching the strippers.

After the procession reached the Embarcadero, it was the Reverend Mother Emeritus' custom to quietly disappear. If the Romans could have their Mardi Gras, she reasoned, there was no reason at all that her flock shouldn't have an excuse to kick up their heels once a year, too. But she knew that her presence at such revelry would only put a damper on things, so she slipped away as soon as she could at the end of the procession.

And so it came to pass, as it says in the Good Book, that one night a rather striking lady wearing a cape, and with what looked like a chartreuse Bishop's cappa magna tucked under her arm, strode into the bar at the Mark Hopkins Hotel, took a seat, and informed the bartender that she would like a triple martini, very easy on the vermouth, and save the olives for the vegetarians and other health-food nuts. As she gave the order, the lady heard a shocked intake of breath, but paid no attention to it. There were still, she knew, some people who presumed that a woman alone in a bar was looking for a man.

But when she had drained the triple martini at a gulp and handed the empty glass back to the bartender for a refill, and there came again the sound of a shocked intake of breath, together with a mumbled 'Hypocrite,' it was too much for her female curiosity. She reached into a pocket of the cape, took out her glasses, and turned toward the sound of the sucked-in breath.

There was a modestly dressed young woman sitting on a bar stool glowering at her.

'Were you speaking to me, Sister?' the Reverend Mother Emeritus asked.

'You should be ashamed of yourself!' the young woman said.

'Probably,' Reverend Mother Emeritus replied. 'But I gather you have something specific in mind ?'

'I saw you tonight!^’ the young woman said.

'And now that you mention it,' Reverend Mother Emeritus replied, 'I saw you earlier tonight, too. You were wearing a lot fewer clothes at the time. In an establishment called, if memory serves, Sadie Shapiro's Strip Joint.'

'You were in some kind of far-out religious procession,' the young woman went on, 'dressed up like a bishop. And here you are in a bar, swilling martinis!'

'You have no idea, honey,' the Reverend Mother Emeritus replied, 'how tiring it is to get hauled around for hours on the shoulders of twelve men. I am simply following Saint Timothy's suggestion, First Timothy, chapter five, verse twenty-three, to take a little wine for my stomach's sake and my other infirmities.'

'Huh!' the young woman snorted.

'Anyway, I had my clothes on,' the Reverend Mother Emeritus said. 'Which is more than I can say for some people.'

'I'm working my way through nursing school,' the young woman said.

'Ha!' the Reverend Mother Emeritus snorted disbelievingly. 'That's a likely story.'

'If there was the slightest possibility that you knew anything at all about medicine, about the training of nurses, I would explain it to you, but under the circumstances - "Some are already turned aside after Satan" - that's also First Timothy - chapter five, verse fifteen - it would be a waste of my time.'

'I'll have you know,' the Reverend Mother Emeritus said, raising her voice and getting to her feet, 'that I have forgotten more about nursing than you can ever learn, you somewhat clumsy stripper!'

'Clumsy stripper! I'll have you know that I'm so good I have a fan who sends me a dozen long-stemmed roses, a box of Fanny Farmer's Genuine Old Creole Pecan Crispies, and a little trinket every day.' She paused and held out her wrist, which bore the very latest digital light-emitting diode wrist-