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a thing as politics. I think he does know there's a
world outside the store, but he doesn't care much what goes on in it."
She pushed her plate aside, poured a cup of coffee, and levered a
cigarette from the Readilit, puffing at it with the relish of the morning's
first smoke. "All he knows is that we're holding our sale three days
ahead of Macy & Gimbel's."
"Russ is a good businessman," Pelton said seriously. "I wish you'd take
a little more interest in him, Claire."
"If you mean what I think you do, no thanks," Claire replied. "I suppose

I'll get married, some day--most girls do--but it'll be to somebody who
can hang his business up at the office before he comes home. Russ
Latterman is so married to the store that if he married me too, it'd be
bigamy. Ready for your coffee?" Without waiting for an answer, she
filled his cup and ejected a lighted cigarette from the box for him, then
snapped on the video screen.
It lit at once, and a nondescriptly handsome young man was grinning
toothily out of it. He wore a white smock, halfway to his knees, and,
over it, an old-fashioned Sam Browne belt which supported a bulky
leather-covered tablet and a large stylus. On the strap which crossed his
breast five or six little metal badges twinkled.
"... Why no other beer can compare with delicious, tangy, Cardon's
Black Bottle. Won't you try it?" he pleaded. "Then you will see for
yourself why millions of happy drinkers always Call For Cardon's. And
now, that other favorite of millions, Literate First Class Elliot C.
Mongery."
Pelton muttered: "Why Frank sponsors that blabbermouth of a
Mongery--"
Ray, sliding back onto the bench, returned to his food.
"Jimmy's book had pictures," he complained, forking up another
mixture of eggs, bacon, toast and honey.
"Book?" Claire echoed. "Oh, the instructions for the 'copter?"
"Pipe down, both of you!" Pelton commanded. "The newscast--"
Literate First Class Elliot C. Mongery, revealed by a quick left
quarter-turn of the pickup camera, wore the same starchy white smock,
the same Sam Browne belt glittering with the badges of the
organizations and corporations for whom he was authorized to practice
Literacy. The tablet on his belt, Pelton knew, was really a camouflaged
holster for a small automatic, and the gold stylus was a gas-projector.
The black-leather-jacketed bodyguards, of course, were discreetly out

of range of the camera. Members of the Associated Fraternities of
Literates weren't exactly loved by the non-reading public they claimed
to serve. The sight of one of those starchy, perpetually-spotless, white
smocks always affected Pelton like a red cape to a bull. He snorted in
disdain. The raised eyebrow toward the announcer on the left, the quick,
perennially boyish smile, followed by the levelly serious gaze into the
camera--the whole act might have been a film-transcription of
Mongery's first appearance on the video, fifteen years ago. At least, it
was off the same ear of corn.
"That big hunk of cheese," Ray commented. For once, Pelton didn't
shush him; that was too close to his own attitude, at least in
family-breakfast-table terminology.
"... First of all; for the country, and especially the Newer New York
area, and by the way, it looks as though somebody thought somebody
needed a little cooling off, but we'll come to that later. Here's the
forecast: Today and tomorrow, the weather will continue fine; warm in
the sun, chilly in the shadows. There won't be anything to keep you
from the polls, tomorrow, except bird-hunting, or a last chance at a
game of golf. This is the first time within this commentator's memory
that the weather has definitely been in favor of the party out of power.
"On the world scene: You'll be glad to hear that the survivors of the
wrecked strato-rocket have all been rescued from the top of Mount
Everest, after a difficult and heroic effort by the Royal Nepalese Air
Force.... The results of last week's election in Russia are being
challenged by twelve of the fourteen parties represented on the ballot;
the only parties not hurling accusations of fraud are the Democrats,
who won, and the Christian Communists, who are about as influential
in Russian politics as the Vegetarian-Anti-Vaccination Party is here....
The Central Diplomatic Council of the Reunited Nations has just
announced, for the hundred and seventy-eighth time, that the
Arab-Israel dispute has been finally, definitely and satisfactorily settled.
This morning's reports from Baghdad and Tel Aviv only list four Arabs
and six Israelis killed in border clashes in the past twenty-four hours, so
maybe they're really getting things patched up, after all. During the

same period, there were more fatalities in Newer New York as a result
of clashes between the private troops of rival