ok it for another cosmetic exhibit. Conveyor belts delivered
barrels of flavoring syrup, alcohol and a widely advertised liquid
vitamin compound. Machines sliced open the containers, dumping the
contents into huge vats, from which pipes emptied the mixture into
passing rows of bottles.

The bottles: suddenly George recognized them and the truth dawned on
him, sickeningly. Here was the manufacturing center for the
compound--but it might just as well have been a barn in Connecticut or
a store window in Manhattan. No man was enslaved by the compound, for
the compound did not exist. He was imprisoned by his own sense of
guilt, his own fear of being different. George remembered his own fear
and guilt: he knew how much a man could be driven to make himself
conform to what he thought other men were like.

His revenge was as foolish as the sham he wanted to destroy. He should
have reasoned that out long ago; he should have realized it was
impossible to have immunity to an addictive drug. But, no, George
believed what he saw on the television programs. He was victimized as
much as any man had ever been.

He turned blindly toward the stairway, and from the shadows in the
hall the Morals Squad closed in around him. With a final gesture of
defiance, he ripped off the stolen dress and the absurd hat, and stood
waiting for the blast from their guns. An old woman, wearing the
shoulder insignia of a Top Director, pushed through the squad and
faced him, a revolver in her hand. She was neither angry nor
disturbed. Her voice, when she spoke, was filled with pity. Pity! That
was the final indignity.

"Now you know the truth," she said. "A few men always have to try it;
and we usually let them see this room and find out for themselves
before--before we close the case."

Tensely he demanded, "Just how much longer do you think--"

"We can get away with this? As long as men are human beings. It's
easier to make yourself believe a lie if you think everyone else
believes it, than to believe a truth you've found out on your own. All
of us want more than anything else to be like other people. Women have
created a world for you with television programs; you grow up
observing nothing else; you make yourself fit into the pattern. Only a
few independent-minded characters have the courage to accept their own
immunity; most of them end up here, trying to do something noble for
the rest of mankind. But you have one satisfaction, for what it's
wor