"If anthropologists on Earth can't explain all the customs of the primitives there," Sam tried to placate him, "how can we explain the behavior of extraterrestrials? Let's go into some of the houses. The chief has kindly given us his permission to look around."
"Our houses are your houses," I stated, bowing graciously.
As always, the tourists grew extremely enthusiastic about the furniture in our simple dwellings. "What lovely—er—things you have," squirrel-tooth commented. "What are they used for?"
"Well, the pryu is for the mrach, of course," I explained glibly, "and the wrooov is much used for cvrking the budz, although the ywrl is preferred by the less discriminating.
"Oh," she said. "How I should love to have one of the—'wroov' I think it was you said, for my very own. I wonder whether...."
By a curious coincidence, Hsoj arrived at this point, carrying a tray full of things and stuff.
"Artifacts!" he shouted. "Nice artifacts! Who wants to buy artifacts?"
All the tourists did. They were pretty good artifacts, if I do say so myself. I'd made them out of the junk I rescued from our dustbins before the disintegration unit got to work. Honestly, I can't understand how the old ones can complain about our being wasteful and then go and throw away all sorts of perfectly useful things.
"You must pay the natives in metal," the guide explained. "They accept only coins."