Lancedale consigned the brewery to perdition. "That's just your cover;
any money it makes is purely irrelevant. How about the election?"

"Pelton's in," Cardon said. "As nearly in as any candidate ever was
before the polls opened. Three months ago, the Independents were as
solid as Gibraltar used to be. Today, they look like Gibraltar after
that H-bomb hit it. The only difference is, they don't know what hit
them, yet."

"Hamilton's campaign manager does," Lancedale said. "Did you hear his
telecast, this morning?"

Cardon shook his head. Lancedale handed over a little half-inch,
thirty-minute, record disk.

"All you need is the first three or four minutes," he said. "The rest
of it is repetition."

Cardon put the disk in his pocket recorder and set it for play-back,
putting the plug in his ear. After a while, he shut it off and took
out the ear plug.

"That's bad! What are we going to do about it?"

Lancedale shrugged. "What are you going to do?" he countered. "You're
Pelton's campaign manager--Heaven pity him."

Cardon thought for a moment. "We'll play it for laughs," he decided. "Some
of our semantics experts could make the joke of the year out of it by the
time the polls open tomorrow. The Fraternities bribing their worst enemy to