My father frowned.

"We've been involved in a high-level confab on this topic," Maury said, "with certain facts emerging. The Rosen electronic organ--"

"Wait," my dad said. "Not so fast, Maurice. On this side of the Iron Curtain the Rosen organ has no peer." He produced from the coffee table one of those masonite boards on which we have mounted resistors, solar batteries, transistors, wiring and the like, for display. "This demonstrates the workings of the Rosen true electronic organ," he began. "This is the rapid delay circuit, and--"

"Jerome, I know how the organ works. Allow me to make my point."

"Go ahead." My dad put aside the masonite board, but before Maury could speak, he went on, "But if you expect us to abandon the mainstay of our livelihood simply because salesmanship--and I say this knowingly, not without direct experience of my own--when and because salesmanship has deteriorated, and there isn't the will to sell--"

Maury broke in, "Jerome, listen. I'm suggesting expansion."

My dad cocked an eyebrow.

"Now, you Rosens can go on making all the electronic organs you want," Maury said, "but I know they're going to diminish in sales volume all the time, unique and terrific as they are. What we need is something which is really new; because after all, Hammerstein makes those mood organs and they've gone over good, they've got that market sewed up airtight, so there's no use our trying that. So here it is, my idea."

Reaching up, my father turned on his hearing aid.

"Thank you, Jerome," Maury said. "This Edwin M. Stanton electronic simulacrum. It's as good as if Stanton had been alive here tonight discussing topics with us. What a sales idea that is, for educational purposes, like in the schools. But that's nothing; I had that in mind at first, but here's the authentic deal. Listen. We propose to President Mendoza in our nation's Capitol that we abolish war and substitute for it a ten-year-spaced-apart centennial of the U.S.