The small room was so Grecian in its simplicity, with its shining marblelike walls, the bench of the same sea-foam white in the corner, and the three tunic-clad men, that the televisor screen set in the wall appeared incongruous and out of place. "Hear him talk about 'the psychologists'," said Herbert Vaine, with a wave of his slender, beautiful hand toward the little unimpressive man on the screen, "when he knows more about applied psychology than any of us in this room. More than you or I, Stanton, or even Parker there." He smiled cynically, and his eyebrows climbed an astonishing distance up his dome of a forehead. Stanton grunted. He was a sour, disillusioned little monkey of a man, and prone, at times, to communicate largely by grunts. But now he spoke. "Be grateful. If it wasn't for that little runt we'd be fighting off a howling mob of neurotics and incipient schizophrenics right now. And not only is he giving us a holiday, he's practically saving the entire race. "After that speech of his, there's going to be a wave of hysteria that will make the panic over that comet-striking-the-earth hoax way back in 2037, ninety-six years ago, look as innocuous as a Sunday school picnic. And it'll be healthy, it'll be the best that could possibly happen to this jaded civilization of ours, a safety valve for the pent-up emotions of over a hundred years! Lord, I hope he can go through with it--if they're disappointed after this renewal of hope, I dread to think of the reaction." He paused, took a deep breath. "Listen." "--were wise, those ancient ancestors of ours," came the voice of the little man, "but they did not have the background of experience that would have enabled them to predict what has happened. They realized that if machines became so perfect that they could do the work of man, without the guidance of man, then the hedonistic existence this would leave as man's only alternative, would quickly lead him back to the jungles. "So they arranged a social pattern that would give every man something to do; you know what that pattern was as well as I. You might have an interest in constructing televisors, and you would strive to make your televisors so excellent that there would be a worldwide demand for them; others who had different hobbies would exchange the product of their hobbies for that of yours, or give them to you if the difference in value was too great. "The world became one giant hobby field, a paradise apparently. "They were wise; it was a good plan. But it didn't work.