Glory Road by Robert A. Heinlein

I learned long ago that you can’t change a deuce into an ace by staring at it. I handed back his ticket. “Mine is counterfeit.”

“I didn’t say so, Mr. Gordon. I suggest you get an outside opinion. Say at the office of the Bank of France.”

“I can see it. The engraving lines aren’t sharp and even on mine. They’re broken, some places. Under the glass the print job looks smeared.” I turned. “Right, M’sieur Renault?”

The expert gave a shrug of commiseration. “It is beautiful work, of its sort.”

I thanked them and got out. I checked with the Bank of France, not because I doubted the verdict but because you don’t have a. leg cut off, nor chuck away $140,000, without a second opinion. Their expert didn’t bother with a loupe. “Contrefait” he announced. “Worthless.”

It was impossible to get back to l’Ile du Levant that night. I had dinner and then looked up my former landlady. My broom closet was empty and she let me have it overnight. I didn’t lie awake long.

I was not as depressed as I thought I should be. I felt relaxed, almost relieved. For a while I had had the wonderful sensation of being rich–and I had had its complement, the worries of being rich–and both sensations were interesting and I didn’t care to repeat them, not right away.

Now I had no worries. The only thing to settle was when to go home, and with living so cheap on the island there was no hurry. The only thing that fretted me was that rushing off to Nice might have caused me to miss “Helen of Troy,” cette grande blonde! Si grande . . . si belle . . . si majestueuse! I fell asleep thinking of her.

I had intended to catch the early train, then the first boat. But the day before had used up most of the money on me and I had goofed by failing to get cash while at American Express. Besides, I had not asked for mail. I didn’t expect any, other than from my mother and possibly my aunt–the only close friend I had had in the Army had been killed six months back. Still, I might as well pick up mail as long as I had to wait for money.

So I treated myself to a luxury breakfast. The French think that a man can face the day with chicory and milk, and a croissant, which probably accounts for their unstable politics. I picked a sidewalk cafe by a big kiosk, the only one in Nice that stocked The Stars & Stripes and where the Herald-Trib would be on sale as soon as it was in; ordered a melon, cafe complet for TWO, and an omelette aux herbes fines; and sat back to enjoy life.

When the Herald-Trib arrived, it detracted from my sybaritic pleasure. The headlines were worse than ever and reminded me that I was still going to have to cope with the world; I couldn’t stay on l’Ile du Levant forever.

But why not stay there as long as possible? I still did not want to go to school, and that three-car-garage ambition was as dead as that Sweepstakes ticket. If World War III was about to shift to a rolling boil, there was no point in being an engineer at six or eight thousand a year in Santa Monica only to be caught in the fire storm.

It would be better to live it up, gather ye rosebuds, carpe that old diem, with dollars and days at hand, then–Well, join the Marine Corps maybe, like my dad.

I refolded the paper to the “Personals” column.

They were pretty good. Besides the usual offers of psychic readings and how to learn yoga and the veiled messages from one set of initials to another there were several that were novel. Such as–

REWARD!! Are you contemplating suicide? Assign to me the lease on your apartment and I will make your last clays lavish. Box 323, H-T

Or: Hindu gentleman, non-vegetarian, wishes to meet cultured European, African, or Asian lady owning sports car. Object: improving international relations. Box 107

How do you do that in a sports car?