twenty thousand shares for him.

As they passed the rose arbor, his mother dropped on the wooden seat and drew George down beside her. "I've a surprise for you, George—a new bidder. Mrs. Harper is thinking about you for her daughter."

"Jenny Harper?" Suddenly his throat was dust dry with excitement.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you, Georgie?"

"Whatever arrangement you make, Mummy." Jenny Harper was one of the few outsiders George had occasionally seen as he grew up. She was approximately his age, a stunning, dark-eyed brunette.

"Jenny and her mother are coming to dinner to talk over a marriage settlement." Speculatively she ran her hand over the tanned, muscle-hard curve of his upper arm. "You're anxious to have your own woman, aren't you, George?"

"So I can begin to work for her, Mummy." That, at least, was the correct answer, if not an honest one.

"And begin taking the compound every day." His mother smiled. "Oh, I know you wicked boys! Put on your dress trunks tonight. We want Jenny to see you at your best."

She got up and strode toward the house again. George followed respectfully two paces behind her. As they passed beyond the garden hedge, she saw the old business coupe parked in the delivery court. Her body stiffened in anger. "Why is your father home so early, may I ask?" It was an accusation, rather than a question.

"I don't know, Mother. I heard my sisters talking in the yard; I think he was taken sick at work."

"Sick! Some men never stop pampering themselves."

"They said it was a heart attack or—"

"Ridiculous; he isn't dead, is he? Georgie, this is the last straw. I intend to trade your father in today on a younger man." She snatched the two packages from him and stormed into the house.

Since his mother hadn't asked him in, George returned to his confinement cubicle in the garage. He felt sorry, in an impersonal way, for the husband his mother was about to dispose of, but otherwise the fate of the old man was quite normal. He had outlived his economic usefulness; George had seen it happen before. His real father had died a natural death—from strain and overwork—when George was four. His mother had since then bought four other husbands; 

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