oldtime newsboy, who sold the Brooklyn Bridge.

So then he was run through a fast ten-minute shower, shave and change by Valet. He floated downstairs just as Betty came out of the cocktail lounge to say, “Code 462112 on the approach indicator. Must be the Stoddards. They always get every place first, in time for an extra drink.”

“Fred and Alice, yes. But damn their taste for gin, don’t let Barboy keep the cork in the vermouth all evening. I like a touch of vermouth. I wonder if maybe I shouldn’t—”

“No, you shouldn’t mix the cocktails yourself and scandalize everybody. You know perfectly well Barboy really does do better anyway.”

“Well, maybe. Everything all set, hon? Sorry I was late.”

“No trouble here. I just fed Robutler the base program this morning and spent the rest of the day planning my side of our Sell. How to tantalize the girls, pique the curiosity without giving it away. But you know—” she laughed a little ruefully—“I sort of miss not having even the shopping to do. Sometimes it hardly seems as though you need a wife at all.”

Ben slid an arm around her waist. “Selling isn’t the only

thing robots can’t do, sugar.” He pulled her close.

“Ben! They’re at the door.”

They were, and then in the door, oh-ing and ah-ing over this and that. And complimenting Barboy on the martinis. Then the Wilsons came and the Bartletts and that was it.

“Three couples will be right,” Ben had analyzed it. “Enough so we can let them get together and build up each others’ curiosity but not too many for easy control. People that don’t know us so well they might be likely to guess the gimmick. We’ll let them stew all evening while they enjoy the Country Gentleman House-Warming hospitality. Then, very casually, we toss it out and let it lie there in front of them. They will be sniffing, ready to nibble. The clincher will drive them right in. I’d stake my sales reputation on it.” If it matters a damn, he added. But silently.

They entertained three couples at their house-warming party. It was a delightful party, a credit to Ben, Betty and the finest built-in house robots the mind of Amalgamated could devise.

By ten o’clock they had dropped a dozen or more random hints, but never a sales pitch. Suspense was building nicely when Betty put down an empty glass and unobtrusively pushed the button to cue Nana. Perfect timing. [p 32] They apologized to the guests, “We’re ashamed to be so old-fashioned but we feel better if we look in on the boy when he wakes in the night. It keeps him from forgetting us.”

Then they floated off upstairs together, ostensibly to see Nana and little Bennie.

Fred Stoddard: “Some place they have here, eh? Off-beat. A little too advanced for my taste, this single dwelling idea, but maybe—Ben sure must have landed something juicy with Amalgamated to afford this. What the devil is he pushing, anyway?”

Scoville Wilson (shrug): “Beats me. You know, before dinner I cornered him at the bar to see if I could slip in a word or two of sell. Damned if he didn’t sign an order for my Cyclo-sell Junior Tape Library without

even a C level resistance. Then he talked a bit about the drinks and I thought sure he was pushing that new model Barboy. I was all set to come back with a sincere ‘think it over’—and then he took a bottle from the Barboy, added a dash of vermouth to his drink and walked off without a word of sell. He always was an odd one.”

Lucy Wilson (turns from woman talk with the other two wives): “Oh no! I knew it wasn’t the Barboy set. They wouldn’t have him set so slow. Besides didn’t you hear the way she carried on about the nursery and that lovely Nana?

That must have been a build-up, but Ben