All the presidents watched the approaching volunteers expectantly.
Before leaving, one volunteer walked up to the long table, took a folded slip of paper from a pocket, and placed it on the tabletop, speaking calmly, with an almost routine casualness.
"Everyone, here are the meeting address and a subway map. If you need public transportation, you can follow the passage to the airport terminal and transfer there.
If you need Rabbit Nation currency, there's a foreign exchange counter in the airport lobby. Please help yourselves."
Under the sunshade, more than forty heads of state stood motionless for several seconds.
John Bull's prime minister ground his teeth audibly. His face was crimson, the veins at his temples throbbed, and the hand clutching the slip of paper trembled slightly.
He abruptly raised his head and called after the air-conditioned bus driving away, his voice thick with anger and humiliation pushed to their limits:
"Is this how Rabbit Nation treats its guests?!"
His voice carried far across the empty apron. "Doesn't Rabbit Nation call itself a nation of courtesy?! Is this how petty Rabbit Nation is?!"
His words were like a stone thrown into water, setting off a chain reaction beneath the sunshade.
All the other heads of state could no longer hold back and began hurling curses as well.
Their words rang out across the empty apron, but no one paid them any attention.
The volunteers began taking down the shade cloth. A few minutes later, the forty-odd heads of state were fully exposed to the scorching sun, with nothing shielding them overhead. Beside them stood only a row of empty plastic stools and a long table from which the hot-water flasks had been removed.
The curses from John Bull's prime minister and the others gradually stopped, not because their anger had