The Real Hard Sell

They entertained three couples at their house-warming party. It was a delightful party, a credit to Ben, Betty and the finest built-in house robots the mind of Amalgamated could devise.

By ten o'clock they had dropped a dozen or more random hints, but never a sales pitch. Suspense was building nicely when Betty put down an empty glass and unobtrusively pushed the button to cue Nana. Perfect timing. They apologized to the guests, "We're ashamed to be so old-fashioned but we feel better if we look in on the boy when he wakes in the night. It keeps him from forgetting us."

Then they floated off upstairs together, ostensibly to see Nana and little Bennie.

Fred Stoddard: "Some place they have here, eh? Off-beat. A little too advanced for my taste, this single dwelling idea, but maybe--Ben sure must have landed something juicy with Amalgamated to afford this. What the devil is he pushing, anyway?"

Scoville Wilson (shrug): "Bea