"You don't like it?" El felt a sudden relief. Actually he didn't want to rob these people of any fun, he thought, and obviously most of them weren't having any anyway.
"It's just the same. Maybe we're too old to find it interesting. I dare say younger people...."
"Well, nobody can say it's our fault, anyhow. We didn't ask to get old any more than we asked to be born. I better go nose-side. Captain's waiting. Good night."
"Good night." Sam Wyckoff stood and followed Avery to the door. As it closed, he looked down at his unbuttoned shirt, his socks. "We didn't ask to get old," he whispered, and went back to the edge of his bunk.
Avery hustled back to the elevator. He shouldn't have spent so much time talking. Wyckoff was a good fellow. Sometimes it seemed a darn shame that the government couldn't come up with something really good for old codgers like him. But what could you do with a superannuated book reviewer like Wyckoff? Old people ought to make good book reviewers and teachers. But naturally nobody'd listen to them. Those smart alecs in Washington wouldn't recognize a bear till it bit them. Only way to batter anything into their heads....
The elevator door opened and Avery swaggered truculently along the corridor to the headquarters anteroom, his fists clenched.
The captain and recreation director looked up at his entrance.
Captain Daneshaw greeted him. "Sorry to call you up here when you're off duty. This isn't really very serious." He smiled over at Forsberg.
"Well, I did what you wanted," Avery said, sitting down to face the recreation director at the large conference table. "I asked around to get the general reaction."