she
writhe? And don't you dare take _any_ offer for our Soth. He's one of
the family now, eh, Soth, old boy?"

He was serving soup to her as she slapped him on the hip. Somehow he
managed to retreat so fast she almost missed him, yet he didn't spill a
drop of bouillon from the poised tureen.

"Yes, Mrs. Collins," he said, not a trace more nor less aloof than
usual.

"Oops, sorry!" Vicki apologized. "I forgot. The code."

I had the feeling that warm-hearted Vicki would have had the Soth down
on the bearskin rug in front of the big fireplace, scuffling him like
she did Clumsy, if it hadn't been for the Soth's untouchable code--and I
was thankful that it existed. Vicki had a way of putting her hand on you
when she spoke, or hugging anyone in sight when she was especially
delighted.

And I knew something about Soth that she didn't. Something that
apparently hadn't bothered her mind since the day of her striptease.

* * * * *

Summer was gone and it was mid-fall before Ollie paid me another visit.
When he showed up again, it was with an invoice for 86 Soths, listed by
serial numbers and ready to ship. He had heard about sight drafts and
wanted me to help him prepare one.

"To hell with that noise," I told him. I wrote a note to purchasing and
countersigned the Ollie's invoice for some $103,000. I called my
secretary and told her to take Ollie and his bill down to disbursing and
have him paid off.

I had to duck behind my desk before the Ollie dreamed up some new
obscenity of gratitude to heap on me. Then I cleared shipping
instructions through sales for the Soths already on order and dictated a
memo to our promotion department. I cautioned them to go slowly at
first--the Soths would be on tight allotment for a while.

One snarl developed. The Department of Internal Revenue landed on us
with the question: Were the Soths manufactured or grown? We beat them
out of a manufacturer's excise tax, but it cost us plenty in legal fees.

The heads of three labor unions called on me the same afternoon of the
tax hearing. They got their assurances in the form of a clause in the
individual purchase contracts, to the effect that the "consumer" agreed
not to employ a Soth for the purpose of evading labor costs in the arts,
trades and professions as organized under the various unions, and at all
times to be prepared to withdraw said Soth from any unlisted job in
which the unions might choose to p