The graduation party for the Washington International School was held at the French embassy, where I sat next to a large and very interesting man who worked for the Dutch embassy. His best posting, he said, was in Ghana, though he also enjoyed Australia, in part because it entailed a visit to Papua New Guinea. (He went there to see what help the Netherlands might be able to give the people and came away with the conviction that they were doing fine as they were.) He said he hadn't started out in the foreign service, and asked me to guess his original line of work.
"Engineer," I said.
"No."
"Teacher."
"Close."
"Social worker."
"Very close," he said.
"I give up."
"I was a policeman," he said, with satisfaction.
