Mr. Adam by Pat Frank Page B

steaks.”
    The Frame leaned against Homer. “I think he is perfectly fine as he is,” she said. “You are just trying to fatten him up so you can use him for your own purposes—all of you.”
    â€œMiss Riddell,” I asked, “are you against A.I.?”
    â€œTheoretically, no,” replied The Frame. “I suppose the humanrace must be perpetuated, although sometimes”—she glanced at Jane Zitter—“I don’t see why. But I don’t think we are going about it properly, nor do I believe proper consideration is given to Homer’s feelings.”
    â€œI know things aren’t perfect,” I admitted. “Naturally Homer suffers some inconvenience. But can you think of a better way than A.I. to accomplish our purpose?”
    â€œI certainly can!” The Frame said defiantly.
    I said we’d talk it over again sometime, and I told Homer I’d see him at dinner, and Jane and I left them to whatever it was they found in the South American annex.
    That afternoon Jane persuaded me to go to my office while she initialed memos. It was quite an office I had, as a Special Assistant to the Director of N.R.P., and I was surprised to find that in the really few hours I had been in Washington it was already filling up with letters and telegrams. While Jane did her paperwork, I read a few of them.
    There was a letter from Senator Frogham. He congratulated me on my appointment, and hoped he could be of service when a bill for continuing N.R.P. came to the Senate floor—a gentle hint that N.R.P. could not continue forever by presidential order alone.
    He went on to say that many of his constituents had written concerning the possibility of bearing an Adam child, and he felt the needs of his state should be considered when the question of first priorities arose.
    There was a long, carefully composed, registered letter from the president of the National Insurance Council. He started by saying that the country was on disaster’s brink. People were not buying new insurance policies, because as things presently stood, the future of their progeny was uncertain. If this kept up, thousands of salesmen would be thrown out of work, the companies themselves might collapse, there would be inflation, depression, and the insurance business generally would go to hell. In that case, the country was doomed.
    The answer, he said, obviously was to take the sound view that Adam’s children be allotted to people willing to insure the future of those children—the holders of insurance policies. Furthermore, any family which applied for the seed of Adam should be forced to take out policies on whatever children Adam’s seed produced. Thus could disaster be averted.
    There was a telegram from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, urging that an optimistic note be given to official releases on the health and well-being of Mr. Adam. Whenever rumors spread that Mr. Adam was ill, or that there was friction within N.R.P., or that Mr. Adam had been found unsuitable for A.I.—and naturally such rumors kept cropping up—securities collapsed. The Chamber of Commerce felt that above all, everybody should be optimistic.
    Both the C.I.O. and the A.F. of L. sent notes that they were confident the rights of feminine union members would be protected when the time came for A.I. to commence. Otherwise, there would be very real and concrete danger of a wholly capitalistic world.
    There was a letter from a Hellenic society pointing out that Greece’s population had been greatly reduced by war casualties, outlining Greece’s long record of service to mankind, and requesting priority for Greece when the rights of small nations came under consideration. There was the same type of request from the Poles, the Moslem League, the Armenians, and the Daughters of the American Revolution.
    It appeared that there was hardly a group of any kind in all the world—and certainly none which