For the moment Ben caught it and he felt pretty good about the coming night’s work. He and Betty together would put the deal over. That would be something.

sir—

Sure it would…

“How do you and your wife like the place, Ben?” It was some place, for sure, the brand new house that Amalgamated had installed Ben, Betty and Bennie in the day after he had signed up.

“It’s—uh—just fine, sir. Betty likes it very much, really. We both do.” He hoped his tone was right.

“Good, Ben. Well, be sure to stop by in the morning. I’ll have the tapes, of course, [p 28]  but I’ll want your analysis. Might be a little vacation bonus in it for you, too.”

[p 

28

]  

“Sir, I don’t know how to thank you.”

The Old Man waved a hand. “Nothing you won’t have earned, my boy. Robots can’t sell.” That was the set dismissal.

“Yes, sir. Robots can’t manage sales, or—” He winked. The Old Man chuckled. An old joke was never too old for the Old Man. The same old bromides every time; and the same hearty chuckle. Ben left on the end of it.

or—

Dialing home on his new, Company-owned, convertible soar-kart, he felt not too bad. Some of the old lift in spirits came as the kart-pilot circuits digested the directions, selected a route and zipped up into a north-north-west traffic pattern. The Old Man was a wonderful sales manager and boss. The new house-warming pitch that he and Betty would try tonight was smart. He could feel he had done something.

D

ialing

Exercising his sales ability with fair success, he fed himself this pitch all along the two hundred mile, twenty-minute hop home from the city. The time and distance didn’t bother him. “Gives me time to think,” he had told Betty. Whether or not this seemed to her an advantage, she didn’t say. At least she liked the place,  “Amalgamated’s Country 

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