Dear Professor B'Groot:
Why don't you explain to the manager of the store that Fizbians have wings and feet rather than arms and hands?
I'm sure his attitude and the attitudes of his customers will change when they learn that your pinching the fruit with your feet is not mere pedagogical eccentricity, but the regular practice on our planet. Point out to him that your feet are covered and, therefore, more sanitary than the bare hands of his other customers.
And always put on clean socks before you go shopping.
Helpfully yours,
Senbot Drosmig
Miss Snow raised pale eyebrows.
"Is something wrong?" Tarb asked anxiously. "Should I have put in that bit about work, study, meditate? It seems inappropriate somehow."
"Oh, no, not that. It's just that your letter—well, violates Mr. Zarnon's precept that, in Rome, one must do as the Romans do."
"But this isn't Rome," Tarb replied, bewildered. "It's New York."
"He didn't make the saying up," Miss Snow replied testily. "It's a Terrestrial proverb."
"Oh," Tarb said.
She resented this creature's trying to tell her how to do her job. On the other hand, Tarb was wise enough to realize that Miss Snow, unpleasant though she might be, probably did know Stet well enough to be able to predict his reactions.
So Tarb not only was reluctant to show Stet what she had already done, but hesitated about answering another and even more urgent letter that had just been brought in by special messenger. She tried to compromise by submitting the letters to Drosmig—for, technically speaking, it was he who was her immediate superior—but he merely groaned, "Tell 'em all to drop dead," from his perch and refused to open his eyes.
In the end, Tarb had to take the letters to Stet's office. Miss Snow trailed along behind her, uninvited. And, since this was a place of business, Tarb could not claim a privacy violation. Even if it weren't a place of business, she remembered, she couldn't—not here on Earth. Advanced spirituality, hah!