d to do was
question them. He carried them (they were the budget for the coming
fiscal year) into his office, staggering a little on the way, and
dropped dazedly into his chair. They showed the budget for his own
department as exactly one hundred times what he'd been expecting. That
is to say, fifty times what he'd put in for.

When the initial shock began to wear off, his face assumed an
expression of intense thought. In about five minutes he leaped from
his chair, dashed out of the office with a shouted syllable or two for
his secretary, and got his car out of the parking lot. At home, he
tossed clothes into a travelling bag and barged toward the door,
giving his wife a quick kiss and an equally quick explanation. He
didn't bother to call the airport. He meant to be on the next plane
east, and no nonsense about it....

* * * * *

With one thing and another, the economy hadn't been exactly in
overdrive that year, and predictions for the Christmas season were
gloomy. Early retail figures bore them out. Gift buying dribbled
along feebly until Thanksgiving, despite brave speeches by the
Administration. The holiday passed more in self-pity than in
thankfulness among owners of gift-oriented businesses.

Then, on Friday following Thanksgiving, the coffin ads struck.

Struck may be too mild a word. People on the streets saw
feverishly-working crews (at holiday rates!) slapping up posters on
billboards. The first poster was a dilly. A toothy and toothsome young
woman leaned over a coffin she'd been unwrapping. She smiled as if
she'd just received overtures of matrimony from an eighty-year-old
billionaire. There was a Christmas tree in the background, and the
coffin was appropriately wrapped. So was she. She looked as if she had
just gotten out of bed, or were ready to get into it. For amorous
young men, and some not so young, the message was plain. The motto,
"_The Gift That Will Last More Than a Lifetime_", seemed hardly to the
point.

Those at home were assailed on TV with a variety of bright and clever
skits of the same import. Some of them hinted that, if the young
lady's gratitude were really precipitous, and the bedroom too far
away, the coffin might be comfy.

Of course the more settled elements of the population were not
neglected. For the older married man, there was a blow directly
between the eyes: "_Do You Want Your Widow to Be Half-Safe?_" And, for
the spinster without imme