, something to be proud of. Tie Witch right in
to the whole picture of the United States as the leader of
mechanical--stress mechanical--miracles.

"Then--what's the most appealing thing in the world?" He didn't wait
for an answer. "A child. A small, crippled child, for whom Witch can
provide the funds to make her walk." Oswald hurried on, knowing that
Randolph had to go through a bit of lip chewing before he could
interrupt, and taking advantage of the fact to ride over objections.

"We've got a kid that an expensive operation will save from being a
cripple. I've consulted two top surgeons already, and they say it's
nearly positive.

"We don't do any hocus-pocus. We just say that Witch is going to pay
for the operation. She leaves the broadcast and goes straight to the
hospital. We get a movie of the operation, and we do movies on her
convalescence, and we play it for weeks until she walks on stage
cured--weeks later."

Now Oswald waited. It was a long wait, an unusually long wait, even
for Randolph. Finally, he said:

"All right. But if anything unusual occurs you will answer for it in
court."

"Nothing unusual could occur. I admit I still don't know what happened
last time, but we'll find out.

"Meantime, we'll take a week to build this one up," Oswald continued.
"The buildup will stress that this is a cure being bought by money. No
miracle, except the miracle of American medical know-how. No miracles
meantime. Just keep Witch clean and stay well, and Witch buys the
operation the kid needs. She's pretty, too," he added as an
afterthought. "Ten years old."

* * * * *

That night Bill Howard leaned across the desk toward the TV audience,
and tiny droplets of sweat stood on his forehead. His voice was calm,
though. A big map of New York City hung on the wall behind him.

The big news that night was a dope raid. He described the dope traffic
in the nation, the efforts of the FBI and every law enforcement body
in the country, to track it down, clean it out. He described what it
did to the young, who got caught and were slaves for life, unless they
could be cured--and he spoke of the meagerness of the cures that were
known.

Then he described the raid. He took a pointer from his desk and he
outlined how the raid had been staged, and he pointed out the
location of the building where it had occurred. Then he followed with
his pointer the route to the precinct jail where the victi