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The Art of Further Study

Just as clerics schooled in mystic orders surround the Pope, consultants abound in their own Vatican City—Washington D.C. They scurry about at all levels of government, jabbering in arcane dialects, mumbling half-heard benedictions. Their hollow language is fast becoming the city’s only means of communication. Hodding Carter, for example, has mastered it entirely. Can’t anybody give a straight—much less infallible—answer anymore?

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