Edwin nodded and dropped the fabric on a lab bench. "Sounds good."

"Well sir, we have to make a few more tests on it, and it'll have to be field tested before we can decide if it's safe to use in garments...."

Edwin tapped him on the shoulder. "Test it, Charlie."

"Sir?"

Edwin frowned. "We don't have as much time as you think. We need that suit of yours fast. We can't afford to waste any more time puttering around the laboratory. You have the fellows downstairs make up some of this stuff into a Standard suit, and I want you to put it on yourself. What I mean is, today!"

Charles' jaw dropped. "Today! But...."

"No buts! Wear it a couple of days, and if you say it checks out, we go into production immediately."

So Charles went home that night in a new suit and a worried frown.

hings were smooth for about two days. Charles continued to wear the suit and Edwin insisted on his making the preliminary preparations for the mass-production of thermostatic fabric. Charles was kept busy working out specifications.

Then there were two factors that brought about a drastic change in his life.

One was that he was worried. Charles wasn't exactly sure what he was worried about, but at the back of his mind there was something in the complicated molecular structure of the new fiber that bothered him.

The other factor was that Ingrid was still nagging him. Perhaps if Charles had been able to tell her what he was working on she would have understood why he was worried. But he didn't tell her, and she didn't understand.

One day after Charles had come home and eaten, she started an argument with him about something or other, and in the most heated part of the battle she had hurled at him the supreme insult.

"Charles," she said, "I think you look different!"

Coupled with the strain that Charles was under, that had been enough to make him stare at Ingrid for a moment, wheel and stalk out of the apartment.

After all, to say that one's face was even subtly different—even if it really was—was an unforgivable insult.

Charles went out for a long, solitary evening walk and ended up at one of those places that features six varieties of beer, a continuous floor show and a loud band. Charles was not quite aware of entering, but once inside, watching the bump-and-grinders who wore nothing but their name tags, he found it difficult to leave.

The room was just ventilated enough to prevent suffocation, but it was purposely kept hot and stuffy in the hope that this would induce thirst on the part of the customers.

When he thought about it later he decided it was undoubtedly the humidity that had caused the catastrophe, but when it happened he hadn't the foggiest notion what was going on.

All he knew was that he had signalled a waitress for a third beer, she had come threading her way between the postage-stamp tables, he had looked up to give his order, she had looked down impersonally, and then there was a scream.

It took a moment to realize that the waitress was screaming at him, and by that time there were shouts from the surrounding tables as well, and men and women alike were stumbling all over themselves to get away from Charles.

In no time at all, there was a first-rate riot in progress, then the lights went out, and Charles had brains enough to fight his way to an exit and slip into the dark alley outside.

And then Charles inspected himself and realized the horrible truth.

he key concept to Charles' society was expressed in the word Standardization. Standardization had had its beginning in the early Industrial Revolution, when