Ed Koch, the elder statesman who bought them when he was Mayor, sagely advised they might be needed for Quality-of-Life arrests.

"Programs," he advised sagely.

Mr. Torossian, who is 6 foot 2 with blunt features and close-cropped brown hair, views himself as a "strategic communications counselor," a phrase that evokes a lawyerly figure who sagely advises clients on a range of matters pertaining to public image.

"Be what you would seem to be," the Duchess sagely advised Alice.

The father of a friend, who spent many years in Hong Kong advised sagely, "If it's a conversation about Madagascar, join in.

"It can't answer you," he advised sagely.

Even his own daughter, Representative Susan Molinari, distanced herself from her dad's program of doctor-torture, sagely advising that it might cause "more problems" than it would cure.

Meanwhile, would-be first ladies who deviate from the script (stand silently but steadfastly by your husband's side; advise sagely but discreetly; smile sweetly but not broadly) watch the typeface on their tabloid headlines grow point by point.

Nearby, a big ad for soap powder depicted a beaming mother sagely advising her small daughter while they sorted the laundry: "The men who make automatic washers prescribe All."

She slyly jabbed at stock market arcana like the Elliott wave theory and the perhaps apocryphal "McClellan oscillator," and sagely advised that "the two most important things I've begun to learn a little too late in life are to wear more sunscreen and to invest."