the end of the week.”
Feisel lifted a thin black eyebrow and shrugged elaborately. “Just inquiring, my friend, just inquiring. You know—just showing friendly interest.”
“Well, go peddle your papers to somebody else. You make me nervous.”
Feisel sniffed with injured pride. “That’s gratitude for you. And just when I was going to put a little bee in your bonnet. I thought you’d like to know what happened to another guy just like you. You see, he got ideas, instead of digging to get his quota. He tried to lam out and you know where they found him? On the sidewalk below his twenty-third-floor window.”
As Feisel went out, Philon swore softly at his retreating back. But Feisel’s little story sent a chill through him.
That evening when he descended from his copter port and stepped into his living room he was surprised to hear young voices upstairs. Deciding to investigate he stepped on the escalator. At John’s door he poked his head in.
“Hello.”
A young blond-headed boy with bright clear eyes turned to look at him and a younger girl with short curly hair smiled back.
John said, “Phil, this is Jimmie, and Jean, his sister. They don’t have a home-school teleclass rig yet, so they’re attending with me.”
“I see.” Philon nodded to the children. “And how did you like your first day at school?”
“Fine,” Jean said, beaming until her eyes almost disappeared. “It was fun. The teacher was talking about the history of atomic energy and when I told her we had one of the first editions of the famous Smyth report on Atomic Energy she was surprised.”
“A first edition of the Smyth Report? No wonder your teacher was surprised.” Through Philon’s mind ran the recollection that first editions of the Smyth Report brought as high as seventy thousand dollars.
The children’s excited chatter was suddenly interrupted by the front door chimes. Stepping to the wall televiewer, Philon pressed a button and said, “Who is it?”
A pleasant-faced man with a startled look said, “Oh—sorry. This gadget on the door-casing surprised me. Ah—I think my children, Jimmie and Jean, are here. I’m Bill MacDonald.”
Behind him Philon heard Jean suppress a dismayed cry. “Gosh, Jimmie, it’s late. Daddy’s had to come for us!”
Philon said, “And I’m Phil Miller, MacDonald. Come in. We’ll be down in a moment.”
The MacDonald children and John headed for the stairs in a happy rush, ignoring the descending escalator, two steps at a time. Philon followed at a meditative pace, his thoughts trooping stealthily abreast. Seventy thousand dollars. Now, if he were to….
“Beautiful home you’ve got here, Miller.”
Philon came out of his daydreaming to see MacDonald coming into view around the corner of a living room ell.
Philon took his extended hand. “Thanks. Glad you like it.”
Jean broke in breathlessly. “Oh, Daddy, you ought to see how they conduct classes—by school TV. You write on a glass square and it appears immediately at the teacher’s roll-board. And when you—”
Jimmie interrupted. “Aw, lemme tell ’im something too, Jean. Dad, John used a spare TV for Jean’s freshman class while we ‘showed’ for junior class on his. Gosh, in history, Dad, their old newsreels go back to World War Two. I even saw your Marine unit—”
MacDonald cut his son short. “That’s enough, Jimmie. You can tell us about it later.” He herded his children toward the front door. “Thanks, Miller, for letting the kids use the school TV. I’m having one installed tomorrow.”
After they left John said with a sparkle Philon had never seen before, “You know, Phil, those are the most interesting kids I’ve ever met. All the others I know are bored stiff. They’ve been everyplace and they’ve done everything.
“But Jimmie and Jean ask more questions about things than anybody I know. They’re really interested. Every time I drop in on them they’re studying history beginning with the middle of the Twentieth Century. They’re absolutely fascinated and read it like fiction.”
With more on his mind than his neighbors’ unusual behavior Philon said, “Mmm.” He stood looking at the boy for a long moment until John finally shifted self-consciously.
“What’s the matter, Phil?”
Philon ended his musing. “Tomorrow night we’re all going to call on the MacDonalds. And while we’re there I want you to slip that copy of the Smyth Report out of their library.”
For a moment the young boy’s smooth face was a blank mask. Then it filled in with shocked surprise, then resentment and finally anger. “You mean—steal?”
“Of course. If they’re too innocent to realize the value of the book that’s their hard luck.”
“But, Phil, I can’t imagine myself stealing from….”
Impatiently, Philon said, “Since when did you suddenly get so holier-than-thou? Life is harsh, life is iron-fisted and if you don’t keep your guard up you’re going to get socked in the kisser.”
John said slowly with a certain tone of shame, “Yes, I know. As far back as I can remember you’ve told me that. But in spite of it I can’t help feeling it isn’t right to treat the MacDonalds that way. They’re too nice, too good.”
“Look, John. You might as well learn the hard facts of life. All the high-sounding arguments for a moral world and all the laws on the books implementing those arguments are just eyewash. Sure, the President swears that he will uphold the constitution and enforce all the laws.
“Then we carefully surround him with counterspies—wire his rooms with dictaphones, slit his mail, install secret informers on his staff. All because no matter who the party is able to elect we don’t trust him—because the society he represents does not trust itself.”
“Is that why we have more and bigger jails than ever?”
Philon shrugged. “All I’m trying to tell you is don’t go soft-headed or the world will take your shirt.”
The next day before leaving for the office Philon said to his wife, “Call up the MacDonalds and if they’re going to be home tonight tell them we’ll be over for a visit.”
Ursula made a face. “Do we have to call on those people? They’ll bore me stiff.”
“For heaven’s sake, Ursula! It’s a matter of vital importance to me—and you also, if I have to appeal to your wide streak of selfishness.”
“I can’t see it.”
“I’ll explain later. I’ve got to go.”
During the day Ursula called him. “Well, Phil, I called as you said and I’ve committed us for dinner tonight.”
“Dinner! Hmm, they are convivial people.”
“Yes and the dinner is going to be cooked right there in their house. How vulgar can some people get?”
That evening while dressing Ursula said, “Phil, John spends a lot of time at the MacDonalds’. What do you suppose he sees in them? It gets me the way he quotes them all the time and reports their least doings. Today he came tearing into the house and said, ‘Ursula, it’s wonderful!’ I said, ‘What’s wonderful?’ And John said, ‘The dinner they’re cooking at MacDonalds’. I’ve never smelled anything like it in all my life. Why don’t we cook in our house like they do? Mrs. MacDonald was baking cookies and let me have one right out of the oven. Mmmm, boy was it good!’”
Ursula finished, “Now, I ask you, did you ever hear anything so barbaric—cooking in the house and having all the odors permeate the whole place?”
“Well, we’ll see.”
Later when they arrived at the MacDonalds’ they were welcomed with a quiet warmth and friendliness that Philon cynically assumed to be a new and different front.
As they sat down to dinner Mrs. MacDonald, a rosy-cheeked woman with a quick and ready smile, said, “I’m sorry we aren’t able to get a connection yet. So everything we’re eating tonight is right out of our deep- freeze.”
