"That is a typographical error, Mr. Cornith. It should read seventy-two inches. The corrected copy should be along soon. Something went wrong with the machine."
"And my eyes are not particularly expressive. I generally conceal my thoughts."
"That, Mr. Cornith, is merely your own opinion. You don't know what expression you might put into your eyes when you look into the eyes of your soul-mate."
"The eyes of my what?"
"Excuse me, Mr. Cornith. I know you're not the poetic type. You're the rugged type, but brainy, realistic. Still, you fit the specifications."
"You said there was another sheet to the specifications?"
"Yes. It won't be finished until tomorrow. But let me assure you that it fits you. In fact, it describes your every virtue and fault."
Cornith glanced round the large room. His brown eyes came to rest on a model of an early Martian rocket ship. He studied it for a space, mentally seeing its interior and its outmoded atomic drive. It reminded him that he should get back to the laboratory and check on those ray-collector tests. This business of dickering over specifications for a wife was a nuisance. His requirements had been on file since he had taken the Levet test at the age of eighteen. Because of his exacting nature they had been hard to fill. Now at twenty-seven he was still unmarried. Not that he cared. But by reason of the fact that he was of the higher mental level, and physically fitted to survive in a complex and expanding civilization, he was urged by the Foundation to marry and beget children.
This was the accepted procedure. Marriage was seldom discouraged, but it was urged only on those who came up to certain specifications. The purpose was to improve mankind in order that man might hold his own in a solar system that was even now reaching out toward the stars. The system had long been in effect on Mars, but owing to the colder climate and the thinner atmosphere, Mars had less than a tenth the population of earth. Selective breeding alone had enabled these to survive.