"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" - unam.

parlor when Gianonni told me that the guy had been arrested and was in jail. So I asked
the girls at the topless restaurant if they knew any good massage parlors around Pasadena
that would like to hang my drawing in the lobby.
They gave me names and locations of places in and around Pasadena and told me
things like "When you go to the Such­and­such massage parlor, ask for Frank ­­ he's a
pretty good guy. If he's not there, don't go in." Or "Don't talk to Eddie. Eddie would never
understand the value of a drawing."
The next day I rolled up my picture, put it in the back of my station wagon, and
my wife Gweneth wished me good luck as I set out to visit the brothels of Pasadena to
sell my drawing.
Just before I went to the first place on my list, I thought to myself, "You know,
before I go anywhere else, I oughta check at the place he used to have. Maybe it's still
open, and perhaps the new manager wants my drawing." I went over there and knocked
on the door. It opened a little bit, and I saw a girl's eye. "Do we know you?" she asked.
"No, you don't, but how would you like to have a drawing that would be
appropriate for your entrance hall?"
"I'm sorry," she said, "but we've already contracted an artist to make a drawing for
us, and he's working on it."
"I'm the artist," I said, "and your drawing is ready!"
It turns out that the guy, as he was going to jail, told his wife about our
arrangement. So I went in and showed them the drawing.
The guy's wife and his sister, who were now running the place, were not entirely
pleased with it; they wanted the girls to see it. I hung it up on the wall, there in the lobby,
and all the girls came out from the various rooms in the back and started to make
comments.
One girl said she didn't like the expression on the slave girl's face. "She doesn't
look happy," she said. "She should be smiling."
I said to her, "Tell me ­­ while you're massaging a guy, and he's not lookin' at you,
are you smiling?"
"Oh, no!" she said. "I feel exactly like she looks! But it's not right to put it in the
picture."
I left it with them, but after a week of worrying about it back and forth, they
decided they didn't want it. It turned out that the real reason that they didn't want it was
the one nude breast. I tried to explain that my drawing was a tone­down of the original
request, but they said they had different ideas about it than the guy did. I thought the
irony of people running such an establishment being prissy about one nude breast was
amusing, and I took the drawing home.
My businessman friend Dudley Wright saw the drawing and I told him the story
about it. He said, "You oughta triple its price. With art, nobody is really sure of its value,
so people often think, 'If the price is higher, it must be more valuable!'"
I said, "You're crazy!" but, just for fun, I bought a twenty­dollar frame and
mounted the drawing so it would be ready for the next customer.
Some guy from the weather forecasting business saw the drawing I had given
Gianonni and asked if I had others. I invited him and his wife to my "studio" downstairs
in my home, and they asked about the newly framed drawing. "That one is two hundred
dollars." (I had multiplied sixty by three and added twenty for the frame.) The next day