“Very well Nana. I’ll leave it. This time.”

“Thank you, Mr. Tilman.”

“So we understand each other, Nana. Though, matter of fact, I’m hanged if I ever did quite see why you senior-level robots get so worked up about your identities.”

“Wouldn’t you, Mr. Tilman?”

“Of course. But—well, yes, I suppose I do see, in a way. Let’s go see Bennie-boy.”

So Ben Tilman went into the nursery and enjoyed every second of a fast fifteen-minute roughhouse with his round-faced, laughing, chubby son and heir. No doubt it was very bad, just after supper. But Nana, with a rather humanly anxious restraint, confined herself to an unobtrusive look of disapproval.

[p 31]He left Bennie giggling and doubtless upset, at least to a point of uneagerness for Nana’s bedtime story about Billie the oldtime newsboy, who sold the Brooklyn Bridge.

[p 

31

]

So then he was run through a fast ten-minute shower, shave and change by Valet. He floated downstairs just as Betty came out of the cocktail lounge to say, “Code 462112 on the approach indicator. Must be the Stoddards. They always get every place first, in time for an extra drink.”

“Fred and Alice, yes. But damn their taste for gin, don’t let Barboy keep the cork in the vermouth all evening. I like a touch of vermouth. I wonder if maybe I shouldn’t—”

shouldn’t—

“No, you shouldn’t mix the cocktails yourself and scandalize everybody. You know perfectly well Barboy really does do better anyway.”

“Well, maybe. Everything all set, hon? Sorry I was late.”

“No trouble here. I just fed Robutler the base program this morning and spent the rest of the day planning my side of our Sell. How to tantalize the girls, pique the curiosity without giving it away. But you know—” she laughed a little ruefully—“I sort of miss not having even the shopping to do. Sometimes it hardly seems as though you need a wife at all.”

know—

Ben slid an arm around her waist. “Selling 

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