Hall helped her select a small rug, agreed at once to the price asked by the Indian woman at the stand, and then had a long discussion in Spanish with the peddler about the state of affairs at the airport before giving her the money. "You see," he said to Jerry, "unless you bargain with these Indians, you're bound to get robbed." The rug cost Jerry something like sixty cents in American money.
"You'll be able to pick up some wonderful beaten-silver things in San Hermano," Hall said. "I'd be glad to show you around when we get there. In the meantime, can I get you a drink?"
"I'd love one."
The only drinks for sale in the canteen were cold ginger ale and lemonade. They had the ginger ale, and Hall learned that this was the girl's first trip out of the United States. "It's all so different!" she said, and Hall thought he would grimace but then the girl smiled happily and he watched the skin wrinkle faintly at the bridge of her nose and he smiled with her. "You'll like San Hermano," he said. "And I'd like to show it to you when we get there."
"Did you spend much time there?"
"Only a few days. I took a freighter back from Cairo two years ago and it put in at San Hermano."
"Say, what do you do, anyway?" Jerry asked.
"Don't sound so surprised. I'm a newspaperman."
"Were you a war correspondent?"
Hall nodded. "I even wrote a book."