"You mean he stole something?" Morey asked in bewilderment.
"Exactly! He stole. Strangest thing I ever came across. Talked ii over with one of his bunch of lawyers later; new one on him, too Seems this kid had a girl friend, nice kid but a little, you know, plump She got interested in art."
"There's nothing wrong with that," Morey said.
"Nothing wrong with her, either. She didn't do anything. She didn't like him too much, though. Wouldn't marry him. Kid got to thinking about how he could get her to change her mind and-well, you know that big Mondrian in the Museum?"
"I've never been there," Morey said, somewhat embarrassed.
"Um. Ought to try it some day, boy. Anyway, comes closing time at the Museum the other day, this kid sneaks in. He steals the painting That's right-steals it. Takes it to give to the girl."
Morey shook his head blankly. "I never heard of anything like that in my life."
"Not many have. Girl wouldn't take it, by the way. Got scared when he brought it to her. She must've tipped off the police, I guess.
Somebody did. Took 'em three hours to find it, even when they knew it was hanging on a wall. Pretty poor kid. Forty-two room house."
"And there was a law against it?" Morey asked. "I mean it's like making a law against breathing."
"Certainly was. Old law, of course. Kid got set back two grades. Would have been more but, my God, he was only a Grade Three as it was."
"Yeah," said Morey, wetting his lips. "Say, Dad-"
"Urn?"
Morey cleared his throat. "Uh-I wonder-I mean what's the penalty, for instance, for things like-well, misusing nations on anything like that?"
Elon's eyebrows went high. "Misusing rations?"
"Say you had a liquor ration, it might be, and instead of drinking it, you-well, flushed it down the drain on something. .
His voice trailed off. Elon was frowning. He said, "Funny thing, seems I'm not as broadminded as I thought I was. For some reason, I don't find that amusing."
"Sorry," Morey croaked.
And he certainly was.
It might be dishonest, but it was doing him a lot of good, for days went by and no one seemed to have penetrated his secret. Cherry was happy. Wainwnight found occasion after occasion to pat Morey's back. The wages of sin were turning out to be prosperity and happiness.
There was a bad moment when Morey came home to find Cherry in the middle of supervising a team of packing-robots; the new house, suitable to his higher grade, was ready, and they were expected to move in the next day. But Cherry hadn't been belowstairs, and Morey had his household robots clean up the evidences of what they had been doing before the packers got that fan.
The new house was, by Morey's standards, pure luxury.
It was only fifteen rooms. Morey had shrewdly retained one more robot than was required for a Class Five, and had been allowed a compensating deduction in the size of his house.
The robot quarters were less secluded than in the old house, though, and that was a disadvantage. More than once Cherry had snuggled up to him in the delightful intimacy of their one bed in their single bedroom and said, with faint curiosity, "I wish they'd stop that noise." And Morey had promised to speak to Henry about it in the morning. But there was nothing he could say to Henry, of course, unless he ordered Henry to stop the tireless consuming through each of the day's twenty-four hours that kept them always ahead, but never quite far enough ahead, of the inexorable weekly increment of ration quotas.
But, though Cherry might once in a while have a moment's curiosity about what the robots were doing, she was not likely to be able to guess at the facts. Her upbringing was, for once, on Morey's side- she knew so little of the grind, grind, grind of consuming that was the lot of the lower classes that she scarcely noticed that there was less of it.
Morey almost, sometimes, relaxed.
He thought of many ingenious chores for robots, and the robots politely and emotionlessly obeyed.
Morey was a success.
It wasn't all gravy. There was a nervous moment for Morey when the quarterly survey report came in the mail. As the day for the Ration Board to check over the degree of wear on the turned-in discards came due, Morey began to sweat. The clothing and furniture and household goods the robots had consumed for him were very nearly in shreds. It had to look plausible, that was the big thing-no normal person would wear a hole completely through the knee of a pair of pants, as Henry had done with his dress suit before Morey stopped him. Would the Board question it?
Worse, was there something about the way the robots consumed the stuff that would give the whole show away? Some special wear point in the robot anatomy, for instance, that would nub a hole where no human's body could, or stretch a seam that should normally be under no strain at all?
It was worrisome. But the worry was needless. When the report of survey came, Morey let out a long-held breath. Not a single item disallowed!
Morey was a success-and so was his scheme!
To the successful man come the rewards of success. Morey arrived home one evening after a hand day's work at the office and was alarmed to find another car parked in his drive. It was a tiny two-seater, the sort affected by top officials and the very well-to-do.
Right then and there Morey learned the first half of the embezzler's lesson: Anything different is dangerous. He came uneasily into his own home, fearful that some high officer of the Ration Board had come to ask questions.
But Cherry was glowing. "Mr. Porfinio is a newspaper feature writer and he wants to write you up for their 'Consumers of Distinction' page! Morey, I couldn't be more proud!"
"Thanks," said Morey glumly. "Hello."
Mr. Porfirio shook Morey's hand warmly. "I'm not exactly from a newspaper," he corrected. "Trans-video Press is what it is, actually. We're a news wire service; we supply forty-seven hundred papers with news and feature material. Every one of them," he added complacently, "on the required consumption list of Grades One through Six inclusive. We have a Sunday supplement self-help feature on consuming problems and we like to-well, give credit where credit is due. You've established an enviable record, Mr. Fry. We'd like to tell our readers about it."
"Urn," said Morey. "Let's go in the drawing room."
"Oh, no!" Cherry said firmly. "I want to hear this. He's so modest, Mr. Porfirio, you'd really never know what kind of a man he is just to listen to him talk. Why, my goodness, I'm his wife and I swear I don't know how he does all the consuming he does. He simply-"
"Have a drink, Mr. Porfirio," Morey said, against all etiquette. "Rye? Scotch? Bourbon? Gin-and-tonic? Brandy Alexander? Dry Manha-I mean what would you like?" He became conscious that he was babbling like a fool.
"Anything," said the newsman. "Rye is fine. Now, Mr. Fry, I notice you've fixed up your place very attractively here and your wife says that your country home is just as nice. As soon as I came in, I said to myself, 'Beautiful home. Hardly a stick of furniture that isn't absolutely necessary. Might be a Grade Six or Seven.' And Mrs. Fry. says the other place is even barer."
"She does, does she?" Morey challenged sharply. "Well, let me tell you, Mr. Porfirio, that every last scrap of my furniture allowance is accounted for! I don't know what you're getting at, but-"
"Oh, I certainly didn't mean to imply anything like that! I just want to get some information from you that I can pass on to our readers. You know, to sort of help them do as well as yourself. How do you do it?"
Morey swallowed. "We-We-well, we just keep after it. Hand work, that's all."
Ponfirio nodded admiringly. "Hard work," he repeated, and fished a triple-folded sheet of paper out of his pocket to make notes on. "Would you say," he went on, "that anyone could do as well as you simply by devoting himself to it-setting a regular schedule, for example, and keeping to it very strictly?"