Last summer I think I went to Japan.

Think? Don't I know? What about the stone castles? What about the gilded temples? What about the 660 slides, meticulously arranged in four carousel trays?

Oh, I was there all right, on a tour that included scholars and artists, second honeymooners and maiden school teachers, bored children and, in a class to himself, Melvin, a sour-faced man who shuffled at the heels of his patient, adoring wife. Because he was an Agatha Christie addict, he often stayed on the train to finish a particularly suspenseful chapter.

"What are you reading?" I asked him as we rode from Kyoto to Osaka.

Scowling over the rim of his book, he growled, "Murder on the Orient Express" ...

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