Suitably equipped customers could actually see pictures of the toys, including a Ravensburger game called the A-maze-ing Labyrinth. “Travel the corridors of the enchanted labyrinth in search of treasures,” read the carnival-like pitch. “But watch out! The walls shift, and the passages can close, leaving you trapped! For ages eight and older.” Lucas was a year younger, but did it matter if the child was as bright as his mother, the network expert? “It seems to be an interesting game,” Luciana Gores e-mailed me, “and it won a Parent’s Choice award.” And so she paid her $24.95 and shipping, which, given the light weight of the toy, was modest. Thanks to the Internet, the Lilienfelds suddenly had the whole world as a market, not just customers living near by. The fact that White Rabbit was in a university town, with graduates all over the planet, could only help. So could the fact that the Internet was expanding overseas even more rapidly than in the United States. White Rabbit also appealed to Stuart Lowry, another promising kind of customer—the computer jock turned family man. A Maryland resident in his late twenties, he wouldn’t have made the pulses of marketers quicken several years ago; he was a grad student then at Johns Hopkins University and, like many people on the Internet, had more time than money. But that had changed. Lowry now worked at Computer Science Corporation, a large defense contractor, pulling down a salary in the mid-forties. He was married and lived in a townhouse, and four months ago his wife had given birth to a baby boy. And so, when Lowry was cruising the Internet from work and spotted a notice announcing White Rabbit Toys, he favored it with a virtual visit. He ordered a colorful toy top for $13, the Floor Spinner from Primetime Playthings. Many people on the Web were young males more interested in pizza or condoms than in baby toys, but the Lilienfelds were looking ahead a few years when the same Net people would be parents. “It’s an act of faith,” Bob Lilienfeld said. “Today’s demographics and selling a lot of toys on the Net may be out of synch. But today’s college students are tomorrow’s parents. Tomorrow’s parents aren’t going to consider ordering by computer any different from getting in a car and going to the shopping center.” Other trends might work in the Lilienfelds’ favor. More and more Americans were time-short, with long commutes; Stuart Lowry himself spent forty-five minutes each way, and that actually was a quick trip compared to those in cities such as Los Angeles. In northern Virginia I knew of parents rising at 4 A.M. to go to jobs in Washington some forty miles away, and not a few of them were high-tech workers who would sooner or later end up on the Internet.