No doubt of it, the carpet made a fairly suitable green, Escher thought. He placed the ball firmly on the nap, stepped back a pace, and tapped it smartly with the golf club. It rolled in a beautifully straight path into the upturned water glass.
"Very nice shot, Claude."
Escher looked up and leaned the club against the side of the desk.
"I thought so, too," he agreed. "What brings you here, Mac?"
MacDonald sat down and poured himself a glass of water from the beaker on Escher's desk.
"Just wanted to pass on the compliments of the Board for the recent large upswing in woman emigrants to the colony planets."
Escher casually waved it aside.
"It wasn't much. We just had to rid ourselves of some old-fashioned notions, that's all. I was afraid, though, that the Board might disapprove of our methods."
MacDonald thought for a moment.
"No, I guess they didn't. I can't recall any members of the Board complaining about it, at least. Apparently they felt that something drastic was needed. Or, more probably, they've kept themselves carefully ignorant of just how we did it. Oh, they know we violated privacy in a lot of cases, but they're willing to overlook it."