ction," MacHenery said. "There's your holiday for
children--fire and destruction!"

"You missed it, sir," Winfree said. "You don't understand. Potlatch is
a wonderful day for children, a glorious introduction to the science of
economics. The boys light Roman candles, shooting crimson and orchid
and brass-flamed astonishers into the clouds. A soft fog of snow makes
fuzzy smears of the pinwheels, of the children racing, sparklers in
both hands, across the frozen lawn. Dad lights the strings of
cannon-crackers--at our house they used to dangle from a wire strung
across the porch, like clusters of giant phlox--and they convulse into
life, jumping and banging and scattering their red skins onto the snow,
filling the air with the spice of gunpowder.

* * * * *

"The high-school kids come home from their Potlatch Parties ..."

"Wreckage and mayhem," MacHenery grunted. "We used to throw the same
kind of parties when I was a tad, but they were against the law, back
then. We called 'em chicken-runs."

"But nowadays, sir, those Potlatch Parties contribute to the general
prosperity," Winfree explained. "Used-car lots used to border all the
downtown streets, anchors on progress. Now those dated cars are
smashed, and used for scrap. The high-school drivers work off their
aggressions ramming them together. And there's no mayhem, Mr. MacHenery;
the BSG-man assigned to Potlatch Parties strap the kids in safe and make
sure their crash-helmets fit tight. It's all clean fun."

"Morally," MacHenery said, "Potlatch Parties are still chicken-runs."

* * * * *

Peggy came back, as sleek and crisp as though cooking were an expensive
sort of beauty treatment. "Supper will be ready in five minutes," she
said. "If you tigers will wash up ..."

"We'll drink up, first," her father said. "This man of yours has been
feeding me BSG propaganda. I'm not sure I have any appetite left."

"What started you hating the Bureau of Seasonal Gratuities, Mr.
MacHenery?" Winfree said.

MacHenery poured them each a drink. "You ever read Suetonius, Wes?" he
asked.

"No, sir."

"Yours is a generation of monoglots," MacHenery sighed. "It figures,
though. There's no profit in having today's youth read the clinical
record of another civilization that died of self-indulgence, that went
roistering to its doom in a carnival of bloat."

"Doom?" Winfree asked.

"Doom richly deserved," MacHenery s