He started to disassemble Sam Weber.
“But listennnnn—” began Weber in a yell that turned into a high scream and died in a liquid mumble.
“It would be better for your sanity if you didn’t watch,” the Census Keeper suggested.
The duplicate exhaled slowly, turned away and began to button a shirt. Behind him the mumbling continued, rising and falling in pitch.
“You see,” came the clipped, rumbling accents, “it’s not the gift we’re afraid of letting you have—it’s the principle involved. Your civilization isn’t ready for it. You understand.”
“Perfectly,” replied the counterfeit Sam Weber, knotting Aunt Maggie’s blue and red tie.
Afterword
“Child’s Play” was my second published story and what might possibly be called my first science-fiction “success.” John Campbell accepted it for Astounding the day he received it; Ted Sturgeon asked to be my agent when I showed him the story’s carbon copy; it was the first piece by me to be anthologized (science-fiction anthologies were very rare birds in the 1940s) and it was to be anthologized many more times; finally, and almost miraculously, Clifton Fadiman went out of his way to say something nice about the story in the book review section of The New Yorker.
I started “Child’s Play” while I was a purser on a cargo ship, early in 1946. My brother had sent me the May issue of Astounding, containing my first published story, “Alexander the Bait,” and when it arrived in the port of Antwerp, Belgium, I showed it around quite proudly. My fellow officers, however, wondered why I made such a fuss over a printed tale by someone called William Tenn; again and again, I had to explain the concept of a pen name.
After many explanations they seemed to accept the idea, and the first mate suggested we go into Antwerp that night and have “a beer or two” to celebrate. I felt I had to agree, even though I had been warned by the radio operator that from the beginning of the voyage the three mates had been arguing over just how drunk they could get the Jewish purser.