ade the first payment, shook hands with
young Dickens and saw him to the door. He said, in parting, "I still
wonder why you do this, rather than dragging down unemployment insurance
like most young men fresh out of school."

Warren Dickens screwed up his face. This was a question that wasn't
routine. "Well, I make approximately the same, if I stick to it and get
enough contracts. And, shucks they're not hard to get. And, well, I'm
working, not just bumming on the rest of the country. I'm doing
something, something useful."

Coty pursed his lips and shrugged. "It's been a long time since anybody
cared about that." He looked after the young man as he walked down the
walk.

Then he turned and headed for the phone, and ten years seemed to drop
away from him. He lit the screen with a flick, dialed and said crisply,
"That's him, Jerry. Going down the walk now. Don't let him out of your
sight."

Jerry's face was in the screen but he was obviously peering down, from
the helio-jet, locating the subject. "O.K., Tracy, I make him. See you
later." His face faded.

The man who had called himself Mr. Coty, dialed again, not bothering to
light the screen. "All right," he said. "Thank Mrs. Coty and let her
come home now."

* * * * *

Frank Tracy worked his way down an aisle of automated phono-typers and
other office equipment. The handful of operators, their faces bored,
periodically strolled up and down, needlessly checking that which seldom
needed checking.

He entered the receptionist's office, flicked a hand at LaVerne Sandell,
one of the few employees it seemed impossible to automate out of her
position, and said, "The Chief is probably expecting me."

"That he is. Go right in, Mr. Tracy."

"I'm expecting a call from one of the operatives. Put it through, eh
LaVerne?"

"Righto."

Even as he walked toward the door to the sanctum sanctorum, he grimaced
sourly at her. "_Righto_, yet. Isn't that a bit on the maize side?
Doesn't sound very authentic to me."

"I can see you don't put in your telly time, Mr. Tracy. Slang goes in
cycles these days. They simply don't dream up a whole new set of
expressions every generation anymore because everybody gets tired of
them so soon. Instead, older periods of idiom are revived. For instance,
scram is coming back in."

He stopped long enough to look at her, frowning. "Scram?"

She took him in quizzically, estimating. "Possibly _dust_, or _get
los