Over Ott there now swept a wave of provincial loyalty, charged with emotion. “They aren’t all good, here in Alaska, or anywhere, but I’m afraid we haven’t time to go into that, sir, just now. Satisfactorily, I mean. These people you see here work in banks and dry-cleaning establishments and maybe liquor stores and clothing and dress shops and television stations and construction companies, and markets and engineering outfits and hardware. Well, like any Chamber of Commerce crowd. People. Anyway, they all work. Everybody works in Alaska, men and women. Have to, to eat and live. Everything costs twice as much in Alaska, remember. That’s something you don’t want to forget, sir. We don’t get the benefit of our own resources—–”

“Parm me.” A voice at Ott’s elbow.

“Hiyah, Doreen!”

“Hi, Ott.” Competently, she slammed the laden plate down in front of Distelhorst and moved on.

Decker bent again for a moment to Distelhorst’s ear. “These waitresses, for example, are all married to, say, construction workers and bartenders and maybe clerks or salesmen, they work as waitresses to meet the high rent and food and clothes—–”

“Waitresses!” snorted Wilbur K. Distelhorst. “I’m not interested in waitresses. I didn’t come thousands and thousands of miles to Alaska from Washington to discuss waitresses!”

“But they’re not waitresses!”

“Why, young man, you just said repeatedly—–”

“They are. I mean, they’re not just waitresses—though what’s the matter with being a waitress I’d like to know!—I mean they’re an example of all kinds of good—–”

“Parm me, Mr. Decker.” A great laden tray balanced just behind him proved not to have quite enough space for passage.

“Well, parm me,” Ott said, fervently. And was away.

With the detached gaze she might have bestowed upon a blank sheet of paper, Dina Drake surveyed the homely food placed before her. She had not the remotest intention of eating it. Nick, the Caribou Café proprietor, stood in the doorway in his shirt sleeves and clean white apron. Now he clumped over to the Speakers’ Table and leaned chummily over Dina’s chair. He smiled his engaging smile, his eyes crinkling, his voice taking on a wooing note.

“Just try a morsel, ma’am. Trouble is, with stew, you can’t fix it so it looks pretty, but Pete gets it to taste real good. Anyway, it’s beef, and before it gets to your plate here in Baranof it’s got to fly a few thousand miles. Here in Alaska beef’s rated a delicacy.”

“Never eat lunch,” Dina murmured.

From her place at table Bridie Ballantyne was following every move at the Speakers’ Table with the concentration of a lip reader.

“You’d think she’d mess it around with her fork, anyway. Pretend like she’s eating. Say, I’ve been served what they call salmon in Seattle, was white as the back of your hand. But I ate it to be polite.”

Now the waitresses rustled in again, with an almost mechanical economy of gesture they gathered up plates, knives, forks, and in their place substituted a saucer of some quivering gelatinous sweet and a cup of steaming coffee. The members of the Baranof Chamber of Commerce, as though their combined right arms were hung on a single hinge, reached for the coffee cup.