the suit, but it had been the heat in that beer joint that had accelerated the action enough to finish the job. Human perspiration acting on the new fiber in the collar of his suit produced some obscure chemical reaction which had a corrosive effect on the plastic band and plastic card of his name tag.

He had to get home, somehow, and tell Edwin to hold up production on the new thermostatic suit. Perhaps the flaw in it could be eliminated in a short time. If it couldn't....

He considered. The world Dollar Standard had been absolutely stable for more years than he knew about. What would happen if it suddenly became unstable? A fluctuation of even a fraction of a cent would cause widespread panic; it would jolt the Public's faith in its infallible economic system. And the panic would cause further deviation in the Dollar's purchasing power, and—more panic.

He wiped his brow. If the situation in the Textile Industry was as critical as Edwin said it was, then Edwin and his superiors weren't going to be at all happy when Charles told them about the suit—and Charles was going to be the fall guy.

But of course he had to get back and tell them. Because Edwin was all set to start production on the all-weather suit immediately, and if he actually went through with that and got a few million of them onto consumer's backs, the result would be not panic, but disaster.

And Charles' present problem was how to get home without being arrested.

t was then that one individual got an extremely tough break, and Charles got his first lucky one.

A turbocar came barreling down the highway and, without warning struck an embankment. The driver was thrown fifty feet from the wreckage.

Under different circumstances, he would never have considered doing what he did then. The penalty for wearing another person's name tag was severe. But Charles was under an extreme emotional strain; and without even thinking, he bent over the limp grey form of the other marlon and removed his tag.

He straightened, then, clutching the plastic band and looking around at the smoking wreck. Already, he could hear a siren somewhere in the night.

He slipped the name tag over his head and struck out through the bushes toward the city.

His plan was simple; he had another name tag in his apartment for emergency purposes, and if Ingrid was in bed he'd have no trouble getting it, destroying the one he was wearing now, and putting on his other suit.

Briefly, he wondered what the police would think of finding a body near a smashed car with no name tag. They'd probably decide it was the same person that had caused the disturbance at the night club earlier in the evening.

Charles realized that the lettering on the car had indicated it was a public, coin-operated vehicle, so the authorities would have no means of identifying the body.

After awhile it occurred to him that if he should go into hiding someplace, the body might easily be identified as his own, and he wouldn't have to worry about what Edwin and the other bosses would do to him. It probably wouldn't be noticed that the torn and blood-spattered clothes on the corpse were not thermostatic. But he shook his head resolutely. Even if he were crazy enough to try it, the body would be reported missing by somebody or other, so that would never do.

Eventually, Charles reached a main thoroughfare in the city and hailed a cab. He climbed in the back, told the driver briefly to take him home, and then slumped down in the seat and brooded.

He stared out the window, watching the buildings go by, and the emotional reaction of the evening began to set in. Morbidly, Charles wondered what they'd do to him if he kept his mouth shut and let the Industry put the suit into production, and waited for the millions of ID tags to begin to drop off.

The