two-thirty and the union agent at three."

The lunch didn't go too badly, lubricated as the customer liked it, and Amos was feeling only hazily uneasy when he got back.

A stormy session with his plant superintendent jarred him into the normal disquiet. Jim Glover was furious at having to take the fifteen-thousand-dollar claim, though it was clearly a factory error. He also fought a stubborn delaying action before giving Amos a well-hedged estimate of fifty thousand to equip for the new drug. He complained that Frank Barnes hadn't given him enough information.

Amos was still trembling from that encounter when the union business agent arrived. The lunch was beginning to lump up and he didn't spar effectively. Not that it made much difference. The union was going to have a raise or else. By the time he'd squirmed through that interview, then dictated a few letters, it was time to go home.

He hoped his wife would be out so he could take some of his prescription and relax, but she met him at the door with a verbal barrage. Their son, nominally a resident of the house, had gotten ticketed with the college crowd for drunken driving and Amos was to get it fixed; the Templetons were coming for the weekend; her brother's boy was graduating and thought he might accept a position with Amos.

She paused and studied him. "I hope this isn't one of your grumpy evenings. The Ashtons are coming for bridge."

His control slipped a little and he expressed himself pungently on Wednesday night bridge, after a nightclub party on Tuesday and a formless affair at somebody's house on Monday.

She stared at him without compassion or comprehension. "Well, they're all business associates of yours. I wonder where you think you'd be without a wife who was willing to entertain."

He'd been getting a lot of that lately; she was squeezing the role of Executive's Wife for the last drop of satisfaction. Well, since he couldn't relax with his indigestion there was only one thing to do. He headed for the bar.

"Now don't get tipsy before dinner," she called after him.

He got through the evening well enough, doused with martinis, and the night that followed was no worse than most.

At nine the next morning, the call he'd been expecting from Buffalo came through. "Hello, Stu," he said to 

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