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Crispin Smith-Crispin Smith stepped out of the limosine and gawked at the size of the hotel confronting him. It was, by far, the most enormous he had ever seen. Metre after metre of shimmering brick rising far into the skies. 'Everything is so very large here,' he thought, letting out an English whistle.

'Beautiful, yes?' cooed the driver, who dropped Crispin's valise to the ground with a thud and proffered an open hand, as if it would be a sort of honour to pay him. Crispin um'ed and er'ed and fished a wrinkled Canadian bill out of his pocket and um'ed and er'ed some more as he tried to straighten it out.

'That will do, sir.' The driver sounded quite impatient, and Crispin's natural inclination to obey forceful direction had him limply handing over the money and spilling apologies and thanks from his thin, red lips.

A voice shook him from his reverie.

"Are you an ass man?" it said, loudly - embarrassingly loudly. Crispin turned and was confronted with the fattest man he had ever seen.

"Everything is so large here," he stammered, and immediately felt the familiar heat of blood filling his face, turning him as red as a [author's note: I'm cribbing Shora's style here] thing that turned really, really red.

"You're from England! Well, let me tell you, my friend," the fat man continued, pulling out a wad of money and motioning the hotel porter toward them. "A little ass goes a long way." The porter arrived by their side, "Get my buddy's bag inside and see to it a couple of Scotches are ready for us." He licked a toothpaste tube thumb and squeezed off a couple of bills from the wad. Handing them over to the staid porter seemed to take no little effort, for he was breathing more heavily as he turned back to Crispin. "This is gonna be one fuck of a convention."