“Well, maybe. Everything all set, hon? Sorry I was late.”
“No trouble here. I just fed Robutler the base program this morning and spent the rest of the day planning my side of our Sell. How to tantalize the girls, pique the curiosity without giving it away. But you know—” she laughed a little ruefully—“I sort of miss not having even the shopping to do. Sometimes it hardly seems as though you need a wife at all.”
Ben slid an arm around her waist. “Selling isn’t the only
thing robots can’t do, sugar.” He pulled her close.
“Ben! They’re at the door.”
They were, and then in the door, oh-ing and ah-ing over this and that. And complimenting Barboy on the martinis. Then the Wilsons came and the Bartletts and that was it.
“Three couples will be right,” Ben had analyzed it. “Enough so we can let them get together and build up each others’ curiosity but not too many for easy control. People that don’t know us so well they might be likely to guess the gimmick. We’ll let them stew all evening while they enjoy the Country Gentleman House-Warming hospitality. Then, very casually, we toss it out and let it lie there in front of them. They will be sniffing, ready to nibble. The clincher will drive them right in. I’d stake my sales reputation on it.” If it matters a damn, he added. But silently.
They entertained three couples at their house-warming party. It was a delightful party, a credit to Ben, Betty and the finest built-in house robots the mind of Amalgamated could devise.
By ten o’clock they had dropped a dozen or more random hints, but never a sales pitch. Suspense was building nicely when Betty put down an empty glass and unobtrusively pushed the button to cue Nana. Perfect timing. [p 32] They apologized to the guests, “We’re ashamed to be so old-fashioned but we feel better if we look in on the boy when he wakes in the night. It keeps him from forgetting us.”
Then they floated off upstairs together, ostensibly to see Nana and little Bennie.