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They pushed through the crowd and entered the huge building, found themselves in a long high hallway. Boone stopped. "I want you to notice something. There is economics in everything, even in the Lord's work. Any tourist coming here, whether he attends seekers' service or not - and services run twenty-four hours a day - has to come in through here. What does he see? These happy chances." Boone waved at slot machines lining both walls of the hall. "The bar and quick lunch is at the far end, he can't even get a drink of water without running this gauntlet. And let me tell you, it's a remarkable sinner who can get that far without shedding his loose change. "But we don't take his money and give him nothing. Take a look" Boone shouldered his way to a machine, tapped the woman playing it on the shoulder; she was wearing around her neck a Fosterite rosary. "Please, Daughter." She looked up, her annoyance changed to a smile. "Certainly, Bishop." "Bless you. You'll note," Boone went on, as he fed a quarter into the machine, "that no matter whether it pays off in worldly goods or not, a sinner playing this machine is always rewarded with a blessing and an appropriate souvenir text." The machine stopped whirring and, lined up in the windows, was: GOD-WATCHES-YOU. "That pays three for one," Boone said briskly and fished the pay-off out of the receptacle, "and here's your souvenir text." He tore a paper tab off that had extruded from a slot, and handed it to Jill. "Keep it, little lady, and ponder it."āāā Robert Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land #book
