their [p 34] reserved suite at Amalgamated’s Guest-ville. “You were absolutely marvellous. Imagine selling all three of them!”

“There wasn’t anything to it, actually.”

“Ben, how can you say that? Nobody else could have done it. It was a sales masterpiece. And just think. Now salesmen all over the hemisphere are going to follow your sales plan. Doesn’t it make you proud? Happy? Ben, you aren’t going to be like that again?”

No, of course he wasn’t. He was pleased and proud. Anyway, the Old Man would be, and that, certainly, was something. A man had to feel good about winning the approval of Amalgamated’s grand Old Man. And it did seem to make Betty happy.

But the actual selling of the fool house and even the two other, identical houses on the other side of the hill—he just couldn’t seem to get much of a glow over it. He had done it; and what had he done? It was the insurance and the toothbrushes all over again, and the old nervous, sour feeling inside.

“At least we do have a vacation trip coming out of it, hon. The O.M. practically promised it yesterday, if our sell sold. We could—”

“—go back to that queer new ‘Do It Yourself’ camp up on the lake you insisted on dragging me to the last week

of our vacation last summer. Ben, really!” He was going to be like that. She knew it.

“Well, even you admitted it was some fun.”

“Oh, sort of, I suppose. For a little while. Once you got used to the whole place without one single machine that could think or do even the simplest little thing by itself. So, well, almost like being savages. Do you think it would be safe for Bennie? We can’t watch him all the time, you know.”

“People used to manage in the old days. And remember those people, the Burleys, who were staying up there?”

“That queer, crazy bunch who went there for a vacation when the Camp was first opened and then just stayed? Honestly, Ben! Surely you’re not thinking of—”

“Oh, nothing like that. Just a vacation. Only—”

Only those queer, peculiar people, the Burleys had seemed so relaxed and cheerful. Grandma and Ma Burley cleaning, washing, cooking on the ancient electric stove; little Donnie, being a nuisance, poking at the keys on his father’s crude, manual typewriter, a museum piece; Donnie and his brothers wasting away childhood digging and piling sand on the beach, paddling a boat and actually building a play house. It was mad. People playing robots. And yet, they seemed to have [p 35] a wonderful time while they were doing it.

“But how do you keep staying here?” he had asked Buck Burley, “Why don’t they put you out?”

“Who?” asked Buck. “How? Nobody can sell me on leaving. We like it here. No robot can force us out. Here we are. Here we stay.”

They pulled into the Guest-ville ramp. Bennie was fussy; the nursery Nana was strange to him. On impulse, Betty took him in to sleep in their room, ignoring the disapproving stares of both the Nana and the Roboy with their things.

They were tired, let down. They went to bed quietly.

In the morning Betty was already up when Ben stumbled out of bed. “Hi,” she said, nervously cheerful. “The house Nanas all had overload this morning and I won’t stand for any of those utility components with Bennie. So I’m taking care of him myself.”

Bennie chortled and drooled vita-meal at his high-chair, unreprimanded. Ben mustered a faint smile and turned to go dial a shave, cool shower and dress at Robather.

That done, he had a bite of breakfast. He felt less than top-sale, but better.