The Project Gutenberg EBook of Status Quo by Dallas McCord Reynolds

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Title: Status Quo

Author: Dallas McCord Reynolds

Release Date: October 26, 2009 [Ebook #30339]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STATUS QUO***

Status Quo

by Dallas McCord Reynolds

Illustrated by John Schoenherr

Analog Science Fact & Fiction

August 1961

[Transcriber's Note: This text was produced from Analog Science Fact &
Fiction August 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

In his income bracket and in the suburb in which he lived, government
employees in the twenty-five to thirty-five age group were currently
wearing tweeds. Tweeds were in. Not to wear tweeds was Non-U.

Lawrence Woolford wore tweeds. His suit, this morning, had first seen the
light of day on a hand loom in Donegal. It had been cut by a Swede widely
patronized by serious young career men in Lawrence Woolford's status
group; English tailors were out currently and Italians unheard of.

Woolford sauntered down the walk before his auto-bungalow, scowling at the
sportscar at the curb--wrong year, wrong make. He'd have to trade it in on
a new model. Which was a shame in a way, he liked the car. However, he had
no desire to get a reputation as a weird among colleagues and friends.
What was it Senator Carey MacArthur had said the other day? Show me a
weird and I'll show you a person who has taken the first step toward being
a Commie.

Woolford slid under the wheel, dropped the lift lever, depressed gently
the thrust pedal and took off for downtown Greater Washington.
Theoretically, he had another four days of vacation coming to him. He
wondered what the Boss wanted. That was the trouble in being one of the
Boss' favorite trouble shooters, when trouble arose you wound up in the
middle of it. Lawrence Woolford was to the point where he was thinking in
terms of graduating out of field work and taking on a desk job which