All these fairs, and others, too, were going on at the same time in the same cavernous spaces, which were like the
biggest big - box stores ever built, their denizens streaming into the fairgrounds, riding half - mile - long mobile walkways, hitching rides on commuter trains from the beautiful old central railway station so evocative for Paul of prewar Europe, drinking late into the night in the dangerously crowded lobbies of the hotels, hungover and sleepless and hoarse by day, complaining and
fibbing and wheedling and smoking and drinking, gorging and lying and drinking and fucking by night, and having the time of their lives.
Misrepresentation, embellishing, obfuscation, omissions, just plain
fibbing: Do it often enough, or
big enough, and you will lose your license.