a good day for us, a big day for him. Good
night, Ellaby. If you want anything, Sinclair will get it for you."

Ellaby assured them he would want nothing except a simple meal of
whatever most people in the Capitol ate on Wednesdays. It turned out
to be pork chops, which Ellaby neither particularly liked nor
disliked. He chewed his food with the proper lack of enthusiasm and
retired early.

* * * * *

The next morning, Ellaby took his I. Q. test at the Capitol personnel
bureau. He was slightly above average in space perception but slightly
below average in comparisons. He hoped his anxiety didn't show on his
face. If anyone asked him why he had come to the Capitol he was ready
to blurt out the reason and have done with it. He wondered what Sam
Mulden would have thought if he knew. The Sinclair woman would have
been furious.

No one asked Ellaby. You came to the Capitol because you wanted to
work there. According to the mode, a man desired to change his
location every 3.7 years. Ellaby had been 6.3 years tardy, but High
Falls was an ideally modal community in which people tended to linger.

"I. Q., point seven under the mode," the personnel clerk told Ellaby.
The slight variation--due to his anxiety--was not enough to matter,
Ellaby realized with a faint sense of triumph. "Proceed to physical
testing," the girl told Ellaby.

Obediently, Ellaby followed the green arrow to the gymnasium. He was
given a locker, a towel, a pair of athletic shorts and a first-aid
kit. He stripped off his clothing, placing the tunic, underwear and
sandals in the locker, then climbed into his athletic shorts and fell
into line with the other men and women carrying their towels and
first-aid kits into the gymnasium.

The ten-over-mode male wrestling tester pinned Ellaby in less than two
minutes, a fact which was duly noted on his employment blank. He was
given fifteen minutes of rest, then squared off on the mat with a
skinny, five-under-mode male. Ellaby bested him in four minutes flat,
took another fifteen minute break, mopping the sweat from his body
with an already sodden towel, then defeated the ten-under-mode female
wrestler in two minutes and some seconds. It developed into a knock
down, drag out fight with the two-over-mode female, who finally forced
Ellaby's shoulders to the mat for the necessary five seconds after
half an hour.

Ellaby showered, ate a hot Thursday lunch and took his employment