standard Romance lighting. Actually, Manning soon realized, the combination was an exaggeration of the usual lighting guaranteed to stimulate romantic emotions. As a result, he guessed, a few minutes in the reception room could almost be certain to turn genuine love to hate. He also suspected that there was an Antagonist perfume being sprayed into the room, but he could not be certain.

The receptionist was a Canopusian. She took Manning's name and asked him to wait. She made a couple of attempts to get him to talking about his problems, but gave up when she had no success.

It was about fifteen minutes before she told Manning he could go in. She indicated the door back of her desk and he went through, into one of the most luxurious offices he had ever seen. Everything in it, in terms of color and lighting, had been planned to establish trust in the occupant. Again, Manning thought he caught a faint scent of one of the dependency perfumes[6], but it was so slight he couldn't swear to it.

[6] The entire line of Hypno-Perfumes had, of course, been banned throughout the galaxy in 2963, after the scandal caused by the Crunchy Suit Company spraying an entire planet just before they started a planet-wide visicast campaign to unload an inventory of shoddy clothes. It was rumored, however, that a few companies still used the perfumes, adulterated with some new chemical that made it almost impossible to detect them without the most delicate of instruments.

Nottyl Nadyl was short and fat. He was no more than four feet tall, but his rounded body was almost as wide as the desk behind which he sat. His head was another, smaller balloon. He was partly bald, but a luxurious growth of coarse hair sprouted from the back of his head, hanging halfway down his back. A broad smile crinkled the flesh up around his four eyes, giving him a jolly appearance.

"Come in, come in," he called as Manning stopped in the doorway. "Welcome to the Marital Relations Bureau of Canopus—the refuge of bruised spirits, the home of last resorts. Come in, sir."

Manning took the chair in front of the desk and examined the creature who beamed at him. He remembered that J. Barnaby had said Nadyl was an Algolian. Manning had met a number of Algolians. He was certain that Angus McBlla, the guide, was also from Algol—but Nadyl seemed to be from a different race than any of the others he'd seen.

"I am Nottyl Nadyl, at your service," the Algolian said. "No marital problem too 

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