Eight months later, a shipload of Galactic tourists arrived. For a while, it looked as though Earth's credit problem might be solved. Tourism has always been a fine method for getting money from other countries—especially if one's own country is properly picturesque. Tourists always had money, didn't they? And they spend it freely, didn't they?
No.
Not in this case.
Earth had nothing to sell to the tourists.
Ever hear of baluts? The Melanesians of the South Pacific consider it a very fine delicacy. You take a fertilized duck egg and you bury it in the warm earth. Six months later, when it is nice and overripe, you dig it up again, knock the top off the shell the way you would a soft-boiled egg, and eat it. Then you pick the pinfeathers out of your teeth. Baluts.
Now you know how the greatest delicacies of Earth's restaurants affected the Galactics.
Earth was just a little too picturesque. The tourists enjoyed the sights, but they ate aboard their ship, which was evidently somewhat like a Caribbean cruise ship. And they bought nothing. They just looked.
And laughed.
And of course they all wanted to meet Professor John Hamish McLeod.