"No," repeated Andrew Young. "I don't want it fancied up. I want it
a simple lump of make-believe. No wonder the children of today have
no imagination. Modern toys entertain them with a bag of tricks that
leave the young'uns no room for imagination. They couldn't possibly
think up, on their own, all the screwy things these new toys do.
Built-in responses and implied consciousness and all such mechanical
trivia...."
"You just want a stuffed fabric," said the technician, sadly, "with
jointed arms and legs."
"Precisely," agreed Young.
"You're sure you want fabric, sir? I could do a neater job in plastics."
"Fabric," Young insisted firmly, "and it must be scratchy."
"Scratchy, sir?"
"Sure. You know. Bristly. So it scratches when you rub your face
against it."
"But no one in his right mind would want to rub his face...."
"I would," said Andrew Young. "I fully intend to do so."
"As you wish, sir," the technician answered, beaten now.
"When you get it done," said Young, "I have some other things in mind."
"Other things?" The technician looked wildly about, as if seeking some
escape.
"A high chair," said Young. "And a crib. And a woolly dog. And buttons."
"Buttons?" asked the technician. "What are buttons?"
"I'll explain it all to you," Young told him airily. "It all is very
simple."
* * * * *
It seemed, when Andrew Young came into the room, that Riggs and
Stanford had been expecting him, had known that he was coming and had
been waiting for him.
He wasted no time on preliminaries or formalities.
They know, he told himself. They know, or they have guessed. They would
be watching me. Ever since I brought in my petition, they have been
watching me, wondering what I would be thinking, trying to puzzle out
what I might do next. They know every move I've made, they know about
the toys and the furniture and all the other things. And I don't need
to tell them what I plan to do.
"I need some help," he said, and they nodded soberly, as if they had
guessed he needed help.
"I want to build a house," he explained. "A big house. Much larger than
the usual house."