"Let me sign it for you," Mr. Steariot said, taking out a pen. "You can have it for a souvenier."
"Like the short snorters in the war," Mr. Mason, the hotel manager, said. "You remember them, Mr. Daniels? Where people got famous signatures on five and ten and twenty-dollar bills and exchanged them and what not, and they called them short snorters?"
"I remember," Fred Daniels said. "Something like that."
"Five djinos on Venus," Mr. Steariot said, signing his name with a flourish, "is worth about twenty dollars here on Earth. No official rate of exchange, of course, but from what I've seen, that's about what I'd judge. Here you go." He handed the bill over.
"Well, wait, then," Fred Daniels said. "I ought to sign one of our bills for you."
"Ah, no need for that," Mr. Steariot said. "No doubt you need twenty dollars worse than I need five djinos."
"Don't be ridiculous," Fred said, a little stiffly; and, by now committed, he went into his wallet and came out with a twenty dollar bill. He signed his name to it, using Mr. Steariot's fountain pen.
"Wonderful," Mr. Steariot said. "How nice to have met you both."
"I feel very badly about this," Mr. Mason, the hotel manager, said to Fred and Alice. The three of them were on the porch outside. "This short snorter business always seems to happen whenever I introduce Mr. Steariot to anyone. Dr. Phelps at the Institute gave him fifty dollars. Can you imagine that?"