plausible impersonation of the Illiterate businessman, loyal Prime
Minister of Pelton's commercial empire, Generalissimo in the perpetual
war against Macy & Gimbel's. From that viewpoint, the sale was
excellent business--Latterman had gotten the jump on all the other
department stores for the winter fashions and fall sports trade. He
had also turned the store into a madhouse at the exact time when
Chester Pelton needed to give all his attention to the election.

Pressing the button that put on his private recognition signal, he
rose above the incoming customers and began to drop toward the
private landing stage, circling to get a view of the other four
stages. Maybe the sale could be turned to some advantage, at that. A
free souvenir with each purchase, carrying a Pelton-for-Senator
picture-message--

He broke off, peering down at the five-hundred-foot-square landing stage
above the central block, then brought his 'copter swooping down rapidly.
The white-clad figures he had seen swarming up the helical escalator
were not wearing the Ku Klux robes of the Independent-Conservative storm
troops, as he had first feared--they were in Literate smocks, and among
them were the black leather jackets and futuristic helmets of their
guards. They were led, he saw, by Stephen S. Bayne, the store's Chief
Literate; with him were his assistant, Literate Third Class Roger B.
Feinberg, and the novices carrying books and briefcases and cased
typewriters, and the guards, and every Literate employed in the store.
Four or five men in ordinarily vivid-colored business suits were
obviously expostulating about something. As he landed and threw back the
transparent canopy, he could hear a babel of voices, above which
Feinberg was crying: "Unfair! Unfair! Unfair to Organized Literacy!"