Eveiy once in a while, you say the right thing. Judy, as you will have garnered, is a steady, serious person - more so than I am, and I lean in that direction myself. Making her face light up as if the sun had just risen behind her eyes isn't easy.

Watching it happen made me light up, too.

Then I got hugged, and then I got kissed, and all the while Tamarisk was just standing there, patient as the Sphinx, and I figure every smooch I got upped the asking price of that ring about another fifteen crowns, but so it goes - some things are more important than money. That's what I told myself, anyhow.

We haggled for a while; considering that Tamarisk knew she had me where she wanted me, she was more merciful than she might have been - but not much. When we finally agreed on a price, she said, "And how will you pay? Cash?"

"No; I don't like to carry that much on me. Do you take Masterimp?"

"Certainly, sir. I'd lose half my business if I didn't."

I dug into my hip pocket, pulled out my wallet and from it the card. Tamarisk took a receiver plate out from under her display table. When I was a kid, credit was a complicated business, full of solemn oaths and threats of vengeance from the Other Side on renegers and much default anyhow because so many people find gold and God easy words to confuse.

It's not that way any more. A lot of the mystique is gone, but so is a lot of the risk. Modem technology again: as with the burgeoning phone system, ectoplasmic cloning has made all the difference. I put my thumb on the card to show I was its rightful possessor. Tamarisk did the same with the receiver plate. Together we declared how many crowns we'd agreed to transfer from my account to hers.

The conjoined microimps in the card and the plate completed the circuit by etherically contacting the accounting spirits at my bank, which confirmed that I did have the crowns to transfer. As soon as the transaction was complete, the card started sliding around on the plate as if it were on a ouija board. I picked it up and stuck it back in my wallet.

Then, with Tamarisk smiling the smile of a businessperson who's just had a good day, I picked up the ring and set it on Judy's finger. Because I'd found the style a little masculine, I was afraid it would be big. Tamarisk said,

"I'll size that for you if you need me to."

But Judy held up her hand and showed both of us that it fit well. She and I grinned, liking the omen. "It's wonderful," she said. "Thank you, David." I got Idssed again, which couldn't help but improve things.

Tm always glad to see my customers happy," Tamarisk said, beaming, "and I hope you won't take it amiss if I tell you I also do wedding rings."

"I think we may just make a note of that," I said in my most solemn voice as I pocketed one of her cartes de visite.

Judy nodded. With a last backward look at the other lovelies on display, we wandered off to have a look at the rest of the swap meet."

Judy kept murmuring, "It's wonderful," over and over.

She'd hold up her hand so the ring would sparkle in the sun and the little emerald catch fire as if it were the eye of a living bird. I said, "First chance you get - maybe tomorrow evening - you ought to take it to a jeweler you trust. I know it looks good and I know Tamarisk seems fine, but I want to make sure you only have the best."

"I'll do that," she said, and then, a moment later, "or maybe I won't have to. We've got a constabulary - quality spellchecker sitting in the office waiting for us. If it won't tell us whether we've just bought faiiy gold, what good is it?"

True enough," I admitted. "And if anything is wrong - not that I think there will be - Mistress Tamarisk will have a visit from Pete and Luke when she sets up here next week."

"Which one of them is which?" Judy asked. "Oh, good!" I exclaimed. "I'm not the only one who couldn't tell, then." And when somebody like Judy has trouble telling two people apart, you know there isn't much to choose between them.

Before long, we went back to the dealers' gate: after Tamarisk's stall, the rest of the meet was strictly a downhill slide. I manhandled the spellchecker out of losefs office, poured out a little wine to enspirit the microimps, and touched the probe to Judy's ring.

Physically it was gold and copper in a ration of three to one: it had an 18-karat stamp, and lived up to it. The little emerald was a real little emerald. That was plenty to satisfy me, but as long as the microimps were looking at the ring, I let them examine its magical component as well.

I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd drawn a blank: jewelry is a trade you can, if you so choose, cany on largely without sorcerous aid. But no - Tamarisk had worked a small spell of fidelity on it, by analogy with the legionary's faithfulness to his Eagle as a symbol of Rome. That just made me happier: what better enchantment to find on an engagement ring?

Judy was reading the ground glass upside down. When she saw that, she squeezed my hand, hard. I shut down the spellchecker, hauled it to my carpet, and took it back to the constabulary station. I got a round of applause when I brought it in. "Sign him up!" somebody shouted, which made me grin like a fool.

We flew back to my block of flats after that. When we got back up to my place… well, I won't say I got molested, because I didn't feel in the least that it was a molestation, but it was something on that order. Judy and I liked pleasing each other in lots of different ways, which also augured well for the days that would come after we stood under the kiwppah together.

After Sunday, worse luck, comes Monday. With Monday, worse luck, would come the weekly office staff meeting. As if that weren't enough to start things off on the wrong foot, congealed was the only word that fit traffic on St. James' Freeway. What with my weekend peregrinations, I was starting to think I lived on that miserable freeway It's a curse of Angels City life.

When at last I got up to my desk, I discovered somebody had put a toy constabulary badge on top of the papers in my IN basket. "What's this about?" I said loudly, carrying the souvenir out into the hall.

Several people heard me squawk and stuck their heads of out their offices to see what was going on. "We didn't know till yesterday that we had a real live hero here in the office,"

Phyllis Kaminsky said. She batted her eyes at me in a way she'd evidently borrowed from the succubi she was trying to control. From her it came off as more sardonic than seductive.

"That's right," Jose Franco chimed in. "I wish my garlicspraying program would get as much good ethemet publicity as Dave pulled in last night."

"Oh, God," I said, and meant every word of it. "What have they been saying about me?" I didn't really want to know.

One more argument against having an ethemet receiver: that way you don't have to listen to what reporters do to things you were involved in.

"We heard what a brave fellow you were, breaking up this contraband ring and capturing the leader singlehanded,"

Martin Sandoval said. The graphic artist paused before he stuck the gaff in me: "So we all clubbed together to buy you that symbol of our appreciation."

I looked down at the little tin badge. If it cost half a crown, whoever bought it got cheated. "I do hope it won't bankrupt you generous people"

Bea swept into the office just then. "What won't bankrupt whom?" she asked, which meant everybody had to tell the story all over again. I resigned myself to getting ribbed worse than Adam until people got tired of the joke. Bea said, "I know a better way to commemorate the occasion: David can lead off at the meeting this morning." "Thank you, Bea," I intoned. If she'd told me I could leave after I'd given my report, that would have been worthwhile. As it was, I figured I'd taken the early lead in the running for the dubious achievement of the week award.