They had all been called into the Old Man’s conference room that day and there wasn’t a one of them—himself from Operations, Larkin from Research, representatives from Sales, Advertising, and Manufacturing—who hadn’t known what was coming.

  The president, the Old Man, never tore into anyone; that was part of his charm and his effectiveness. He always spoke logically and fairly and when he could give the man on the carpet the benefit of the doubt he gave it. But he always had the facts.

  “Mr. Larkin,” he had said slowly, “I know you remember the meeting at which it was decided to put this experiment of yours on a commercial basis. I had almost said, ‘it was voted,’ but you will also recall, I think, that only you and I voted in favor. So we did it anyway.”

  Tom had said he would never forget that.

  “But we are losing money on it. The sales curve for—what do you call it?”

  “Program Roses.”

  “For Program Roses has been nearly flat and recently, in fact, has started slanting downward. Roses is in the red and I’ll tell you frankly that if the rest of our business were not experiencing a goodish upturn we wouldn’t have been able to carry it this long. Can you give me any reason why Program Roses should not be terminated?”

  The Senator interrupted. “From all you’ve said, Mr. Smithe, it seems to me your company should have sent Mr. Larkin to testify before this committee instead of yourself.”

  “We wanted to,” Ed said, “but he couldn’t be reached.”

  “Couldn’t be reached?”

  “You see, he himself eventually subscribed. He and his bride are taking a six-month honeymoon in a sloop. Tom’s always been quite a sailor in his spare time, and as it turned out the girl Roses picked for him is, too.”

  “Did you say six months?” The Senator sounded incredulous.

  “With pay. Our president didn’t want to let him have more than three but Tom threatened to quit.”

  “It would seem”—the Senator was smiling coldly—“that you have been victimized by your own cleverness.”

  “We don’t think so. You see—”

  Tom had waited until the Old Man was finished before he exploded his bombshell. Until he was finished and there had been a long, pregnant pause. Then he hadn’t addressed the president directly; he appeared to speak to Sales: “I don’t want Roses discontinued—it’s the best thing we’ve got. I want to give it away.”

  No one had spoken. Ed remembered that he himself had known a sick realization that Tom had cracked up at last.

  “Roses,” Tom had announced, “has already brought us three million in new contracts and accounts. You don’t charge people to read your advertising, do you? They might be willing to pay—some who are interested enough—but you make more money when it’s free.”

  Sales had said slowly, “He’s right. He and I have combed through the new accounts one by one, and in ninety per cent of the cases we’ve found that the decision to swing the business to us was either made or strongly influenced by someone who’d been a client for Roses.”

  The Senator in the center cleared his throat. “You mean to sit there and tell us that Roses is just a sales gimmick for the rest of your business?”

  “A gimmick,” Ed Smithe said, “is when you give away a plastic bathtub toy with a box of breakfast cereal. And that brings us to something else Tom made us realize. Roses not only made these key people familiar with our machines and impressed with them, it also made the Mark XX a permanent part of their lives. The competition has found that it can talk a long time and not erase that.”

  “And so you have actually offered the service free.”

  “To people who we feel will be in a position to specify computers or computer services as part of their careers—yes.”

  · · · ·

  There was a stir in the chamber. The Senator said heavily, “You seem to be destroying the fabric of society as a sort of side effect.”

  “Not really.” Ed drew a deep breath. “Senator, who’s the better farmer, the man who hitches up his tractor and runs it until it breaks or the man who oils and services it and lets it cool off if the engine overheats? And who gets more plowing done in the long run? These men and women who have lived half their lives in loneliness are often thrown off balance temporarily when they finally find someone with whom they can relate, I admit. Sometimes they just want to quit—to be with their new partner every hour. But eventually they come back—and when they do they’re working for something, not just to get away from something. Right now we’re in the trough—the service has been building rapidly and a majority of our clients are still in the honeymoon stage. But the earlier ones are coming back stronger than ever and I can prove it.”

  He did. The charts and slides helped but the facts really spoke for themselves. Numbers of theses written, numbers of patents granted, earnings of firms whose executive ranks were heavy with early clients. He was no salesman but he could feel the whole chamber swinging over; it thrilled him.

  When he finished he was wrung out. His shirt was sticking to his chest and his legs felt weak. But at least he had convinced them.

  The Senator on the left said, “You give the service to—”

  “People in private industry, government, or nonprofit institutions who in our judgment may eventually be in a position to give us business. Others are charged a minimal fee. I’m happy to say we’ve gotten that down quite a bit.”

  The Senator in the center smiled suddenly. It was the charming, slightly lopsided smile he had used on a thousand campaign posters.

  “If I’m not being impertinent, Mr. Smithe,” he asked, “could you tell us your own marital status?”

  “I have been a widower for almost twenty years.”

  “You haven’t used the Roses service yourself?”

  In a voice that was barely audible he said, “To tell the truth, Senator, I’ve had to postpone my trip to England because of these hearings. You see, our president wanted to make certain I’d be here to testify. Marcia—that’s her name; she’s a librarian in Liverpool—Marcia and I have written and talked by long-distance telephone but we’ve not yet been able to meet.”

  “I hope you will be able to soon,” the Senator in the center said. “You may step down, Mr. Smithe.”

  He began the long walk back to his seat, glad he hadn’t been forced to tell them that it was Marcia who had requested Roses from the company’s British subsidiary. That she had found him. It would have sounded too silly.

  Paul’s Treehouse

  Arbor Day

  It was the day after the governor called out the National Guard, but Morris did not think of it that way; it was the morning after the second night Paul had spent in the tree, and Morris brushed his teeth with Scotch after he looked into Paul’s bedroom and saw the unrumpled bed. And it was hot; though not in the house, which was air-conditioned.

  Sheila was still asleep, lying straight out like a man on the single bed across from his own. He left her undisturbed, filling his glass with Scotch again and carrying it out to the patio at the side of the house. The sun was barely up, yet the metal furniture there was already slightly warm. It would be a hot day, a scorcher. He heard the snip-snack of Russell’s shears on the other side of the hedge and braced himself for the inevitable remark.

  “It’s going to be a hot one, isn’t it?” Sticking his head over the top of the hedge. Morris nodded, hoping that if he did not speak Russell would stay where he was. The hope was fruitless. He could hear Russell unlatching the gate, although he purposely did not look.

  “Hotter than the hinges of hell,” Russell said, sitting down. “Do the gardening early, that’s what I told myself, do it early while it’s cool, and look at me. I’m sweating already. Did you hear what they did last night? Beat a cop to death with golf clubs and polo mallets out of a store window.”

  Morris said nothing, looking up at Paul’s treehouse. It was on the other side of the yard, but so high up it could be seen above the roofline of the house.

  “Beat him to death right out on the street.”

  “I suppose some of them deserve it,” Morris said moodily.

  “Sure they do, but it’s them doing it. That’s what gets to me Drinking pretty early, aren’t you?” Russell was tall and gangling, with a long neck and a prominent Adam’s apple; Morris, short and fat-bellied, envied him his straight lines.

  “I guess I am,” he said. “Like one?”

  “Since it’s Saturday”

  It was cool in the house, much cooler than the patio, but the air was stale. He splashed the cheaper “guest” whisky into a glass and added a squirt of charged water.

  “Is that your boy Paul’s?” When he came out again, Russell was staring up at the treehouse just as he himself had been doing a moment before. Morris nodded.

  “He built it on his own, didn’t he? I remember watching him climb up there with boards or something, with his little radio playing to keep him company.” He took the drink. “You don’t mind if I walk around and have a look at it, do you?”

  Reluctantly Morris followed him, stepping over the beds of flame-toned, scentless florabundas Sheila loved.

  The tree at the other side of the house gave too much shade for roses. There was nothing under it except a little sparse grass and a few stones Paul had dropped.

  Russell whistled. “That’s way up there, isn’t it? Fifty feet if it’s an inch. Why’d you let him build it so high?”

  “Sheila doesn’t believe in thwarting the boy’s natural inclinations.” It sounded silly when Morris said it, and he covered by taking another sip of the whisky.

  Russell shook his head. “If he ever falls out of there he’ll kill himself.”

  “Paul’s a good climber,” Morris said.

  “He’d have to be to build that thing.” Russell continued to stare, craning his body backward. Morris wished that he would return to the patio.

  “It took him almost two weeks,” Morris said.

  “He swiped the lumber off the housing project, didn’t he?”

  “I bought him some of it.” For an instant Morris had seen Paul’s small, brown head in one of the windows. He wondered if Russell had noticed it.

  “But he swiped most of it. Two-by-fours and four-by-fours; it looks solid.”

  “I suppose it is.” Before he could catch himself he added, “He’s got buckets of rocks up there.”

  “Rocks?” Russell looked down, startled.

  “Rocks about the size of tennis balls. Paul built a sort of elevator and hauled them up. He must have eight or ten buckets full.”

  “What’s he want those for?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, ask him.” Russell looked angry at having his curiosity balked. “He’s your kid.” Morris swallowed the last of his second drink, saying nothing.

  “How does he get up there?” Russell was looking at the tree again. “It doesn’t look as if you could climb it.”

  “He cut off some of the branches after he got the place built. He has a rope with knots in it he lets down.”

  “Where is it?” Russell looked around, expecting to see the rope tangled in the tree’s branches somewhere.

  It was bound to come out now. “He pulls it up after him when he goes in there,” Morris said. The Scotch was lying like a pool of mercury in his empty stomach.

  “You mean he’s up there now?”

  Neither of them had heard Shelia come out. “He’s been up there since Thursday.” She sounded unconcerned.

  Morris turned to face her and saw that she was wearing a quilted pink housecoat. Her hair was still in curlers. He said, “You didn’t have to get up so early.”

  “I wanted to.” She yawned. “I set the clock-radio for six. It’s going to be hot in town, and I want to be right there when the stores open.”

  “I wouldn’t go today,” Russell said.

  “I’m not going down there I’m going to the good stores.” Shelia yawned again. Without makeup, Morris thought, she looked too old to have a son as young as Paul. He did himself, he knew, but Sheila usually looked younger to him; especially when he had had something to drink. “Did you hear about the National Guard, though,” she added when she had finished the yawn.

  Russell shook his head.

  “You know how somebody said they were shooting at everything and doing more damage than the rioters? Well, they’re going to protest that. I heard it on the radio. They’re going to hold a march of their own today.”

  Russell was no longer listening. He leaned back to look at Paul’s treehouse again.

  “Ever since Thursday,” Sheila said. “Isn’t that a scream?”

  Morris surprised himself by saying, “I don’t think so, and I’m going to make him come down today.” Sheila looked at him coolly.

  “How does he live up there?” Russell asked.

  “Oh, he’s got a blanket and things,” Shelia said.

  Morris said slowly, “While I was at the office Thursday he took blankets out of the linen closet and a lot of canned food and fruit juice out of the pantry and carried it all up there.”

  “It’s good for him,” Sheila said. “He’s got his radio and scout knife and whatnot, too. He wants to get away and be on his own. So let him. He’ll come down when he’s hungry, that’s what I tell Morris, and meanwhile we know where he is.”

  “I’m going to make him come down today,” Morris repeated, but neither of them heard him.

  When they went away Sheila to start breakfast, Russell, presumably, to finish clipping his side of the hedgeMorris remained where he was, staring up at the treehouse. After two or three minutes he walked over to the trunk and laid a hand on the rough bark. He had been studying the tree for three days now and knew that even before Paul had looped some of its limbs it had not been an easy tree to climb. Walking only a trifle unsteadily, he went to the garage and got the step-ladder.

  From the top of the ladder he could reach the lowest limb by stretching himself uncomfortably and balancing on the balls of his feet with his body leaning against the trunk. Suddenly conscious of how soft his palms had become in the last fifteen years, how heavy his body was, he closed his hands around the limb and tried to pull himself up. Struggling to grip the tree with his legs, he kicked the ladder, which fell over.

  From somewhere below, Russell said, “Don’t break your neck, Morris,” and he heard the sound of faint music. He twisted his head until he could see Russell, with a transistor radio clipped to his belt, righting the ladder.

  Morris said “Thanks” gratefully and stood panting at the top for a moment before coming down.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Russell said.

  “Listen,” Morris was still gulping for breath, “would you go up there and get him?” It was a humiliating admission, but he made it: “You ought to be able to climb better than I can.”

  “Sorry,” Russell touched his chest, “doctor’s orders.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know.”

  “Nothing serious, I’m just supposed to stay away from places where I might take a bad fall. I get dizzy sometimes.”

  “I see.”

  “Sure. Did you hear about the fake police? It came over our radio a minute ago.”

  Morris shook his head, still panting and steadying himself against the ladder.

  “They’re stripping the uniforms off dead cops and putting them on themselves. They’ve caused a lot of trouble that way.”

  Morris nodded. “I’ll bet.”

  Russell kicked the tree. “He’s your kid. Why don’t you just tell him to come down?”

  “I tried that yesterday. He won’t.”

  “Well, try again today. Make it strong.”

  “Paul!” Morris made his voice as authoritative as he could. “Paul, look down here!” There was no movement in the treehouse.

  “Make it strong. Tell him he’s got to come down.”

  “Paul, come out of there this minute!”

  The two men waited. There was no sound except for the tuneless music of the radio and the whisper of a breeze among the saw-edged leaves.

  “I guess he’s not going to come,” Morris said.

  “Are you sure he’s up there?”

  Morris thought of the glimpse of Paul’s head he had seen earlier. “He’s up there. He just won’t answer.” He thought of the times he had taken the pictures his mother had given him, pictures showing his own childhood, from their drawer and studied them to try and discover some similarity between himself and Paul. “He doesn’t want to argue,” he finished weakly.

  “Say.” Russell was looking at the tree again. “Why don’t we chop it?” He dropped his voice to a whisper.

  Morris was horrified. “He’d be killed.”

  The radio’s metallic jingling stopped. “We interrupt this program for a bulletin.” Both men froze.

  “Word has reached our newsroom that the demonstration organized by Citizens For Peace has been disrupted by about five hundred storm troopers of the American Nazi Party. It appears that members of a motorcycle club have also entered the disturbance; it is not known on which side.”

  Russell switched the radio off. Morris sighed, “Every time they have one of those bulletins I think it’s going to be the big one.”

  His neighbor nodded sympathetically. “But listen, we don’t have to cut the tree clear down. Anyway, it must be nearly three feet thick and it would take us a couple of days, probably. All we have to do is chop at it a little. He’ll think we’re going to cut it with him in it, and climb down. You have an ax?”

  Morris shook his head.

  “I do. I’ll go over and get it.”

  Morris waited under the tree until he had left, then called Paul’s name softly several times. There was no reply. Raising his voice, he said, “We don’t want to hurt you, Paul.” He tried to think of a bribe. Paul already had a bicycle. “I’ll build you a swimming pool, Paul. In the backyard where your mother has her flowers. I’ll have men come in with a bulldozer and dig them out and make us a swimming pool there.” There was no answer. He wanted to tell Paul that they weren’t really going to chop down the tree, but something prevented him. Then he could hear Russell opening the gate on the other side of the house.