stops tomorrow."

"Yes, but I read in a book where people used to go to work when they were young."

He was tempted to say, "I am young!" but thought better of it. "That was long ago, dear."

"Were people different then?"

"No, but society was. Our Senior Citizens used to be pensioned off, while younger people worked. But when science improved the Seniors' health, they got tired of sitting in corners on pensions and, besides, a lot of them died soon after they stopped working. When it got so that more than half of all voters were between forty and seventy years old, the Seniors voted their pensions to the young, to get educated and raise families on, and nobody's allowed to work till he's forty. Now do you see?"

"Forty is awful old," said Sophie.

oward had meanwhile taken his mother's hand. "You're not going to work, are you, Mommy?" he asked.

"Not for ten years, dear. I'll be here when you want me, so why don't you go play on the balcony? I've got to get Daddy off and give Ralph his bath."

"I'll bathe him," Sophie volunteered. "You help, Howie. We can make like we're young."

"Don't drop him," Kate warned.

"Clean up the bathroom afterward," added Bozzy.

"Yes, sir," said Howard, for the first time in his life.

The children left, and Kate came close to pour Bozzy his cup of Daystart. He slipped an arm around her waist and squeezed convulsively.

"Darling!" she said, stroking his bald spot. "You're positively trembling!"

"Wouldn't you be, if you had to take over from somebody you like as well as I like Mr. Kojac? And for no good reason, except he's seventy-five and I'll soon be forty."

Kate pushed away from him, frowning. "Sometimes you're so silly, it scares me. You know perfectly well that if you don't take Mr. Kojac's job, someone else will. He'd rather have it in your hands than in a stranger's, and I'd rather live on his income than on a laborer's. So stop moping and drink your Daystart, while I call a cab."

No help in that quarter, Bozzy decided as she left. All Kate could think of was that she'd soon be the wife of a big-shot: the manager—that is, controls setter—of a furniture factory.

Bozzy had never told her how simple the job really was, though he supposed she knew.

You first ordered designs, and then you ordered a poll taken on the designs. A computer tabulated the poll's results and pointed out the design most likely to sell.

You then fed economic data into the same computer, and found out how many units the market could take. You called in the engineers to set up the machines, and the maintenance men to keep them running. In brief, you were errand boy to a bunch of gadgets, with nothing to do but look important.

He was practicing his important look when Kate bustled in and spoiled it by sitting on his lap.

"You're going to do fine today," she said, "and you're going to get off to a good start. I made them show me your cab. It's one of their brand-new battery-electric ones, a sort of mauve that will go with your purple robe. You'll look swell in it."

ozzy was kissing her when the lobby buzzer sounded three long rings.

"There's your cab," Kate said, rising.

He followed her to the living room. Projected on one wall was a picture of the cabman facing the lobby annunciator, fifty-three stories down. The man was tall, fat, and in need of a shave, yet he wore purple tights with pink and green trim.

Bozzy shuddered. "Who in the world concocted that rig?"

"Your wife, sir," the cabman answered.

"It's beautiful," said Bozzy. "I'll be right down."

He wasn't, though. Kate