arous faddists--blind to the deeply spiritual nature
of bread, which is recognized by all great religions--held back our
march toward perfection with their hair-splitting insistence on the
vitamin content of the wheat germ, but their case collapsed when
tasteless colorless substitutes were triumphantly synthesized and
introduced into the loaf, which for flawless purity, unequaled airiness
and sheer intangible goodness was rapidly becoming mankind's supreme
gustatory experience."

[Illustration]

"I wonder what the stuff tastes like," Rose Thinker said out of a clear
sky.

"I wonder what taste tastes like," Tin Philosopher echoed dreamily.
Recovering himself, he continued:

"Then, early in the twenty-first century, came the epochal researches of
Everett Whitehead, Puffyloaf chemist, culminating in his paper 'The
Structural Bubble in Cereal Masses' and making possible the baking of
airtight bread twenty times stronger (for its weight) than steel and of
a lightness that would have been incredible even to the advanced
chemist-bakers of the twentieth century--a lightness so great that,
besides forming the backbone of our own promotion, it has forever since
been capitalized on by our conscienceless competitors of Fairy Bread
with their enduring slogan: 'It Makes Ghost Toast'."

"That's a beaut, all right, that ecto-dough blurb," Rose Thinker
admitted, bugging her photocells sadly. "Wait a sec. How about?--

"_There'll be bread
Overhead
When you're dead--
It is said._"

* * * * *

Phineas T. Gryce wrinkled his nostrils at the pink machine as if he
smelled her insulation smoldering. He said mildly, "A somewhat unhappy
jingle, Rose, referring as it does to the end of the customer as
consumer. Moreover, we shouldn't overplay the figurative 'rises through
the air' angle. What inspired you?"

She shrugged. "I don't know--oh, yes, I do. I was remembering one of the
workers' songs we machines used to chant during the Big Strike--

"_Work and pray,
Live on hay.
You'll get pie
In the sky
When you die--
It's a lie!_

"I don't know why we chanted it," she added. "We didn't want pie--or
hay, for that matter. And machines don't pray, except Tibetan prayer
wheels."

Phineas T. Gryce shook his head. "Labor relations are another topic we
should stay far away from. However, dear Rose, I'm glad you keep trying
to outjingle those dirty crooks at Fairy Br