"I don't know, no. Taxes don't bother me much. But go ahead. You teach a few courses. In?"
"Oh, bars, trapeze, ground-and-lofty tumbling, acrobatics, aerialistics, high-wire, muscle-control, judo—all that kind of thing."
"Ouch! So if you ever happen to accidentally get mad at me you'll tie me right up into a pretzel?"
"I doubt it; very seriously. I've tossed lots of two-hundred-pounders around, of course, but they were not space officers." She laughed unaffectedly as she tested his musculature much more professionally and much more thoroughly than he had tested hers. "Definitely I couldn't. A good big man can always take a good little one, you know."
"But I'm not big; I'm just a little squirt. You've probably heard what they call me?"
"Yes, and I'm going to call you 'Babe', too, and mean it the same way they do. Besides, who wants a man a foot taller than she is and twice as big? You're just exactly the right size!"
"That's spreading the good old oil, Bobby, but I'll never tangle with you if I can help it. Buzz-saws are small, too, and sticks of dynamite. Shall we go hunt up the parson—or should it be a priest? Or a rabbi?"
"Even that doesn't make a particle of difference to you."
"Of course not. How could it?"
"A parson, please." Then, with a bright, quick grin: "We have got a lot to learn about each other, haven't we?"