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He had a lunch date with a customer and dreaded it—it meant three or four highballs and overeating and an upset stomach later. Before then, though, he had a few minutes to try to get his mind straightened out. He mixed a glassful of the stuff he was supposed to take about now. The Compleat Executive, he thought; with physician and prescription attached. It didn’t seem possible that this same body had once breezed through anything from football to fried potatoes.

Mechanically, his mind on the lab’s pigs, he got a small bag of grain out of a desk drawer. He hoped nobody (except his secretary, of course) knew he wasted time feeding pigeons, but it helped his nerves, and he felt he had a right to one or two eccentricities.

They were already waiting. Some of them knew him and didn’t shoo off when he opened the window and scattered grain on the ledge outside. A few ate from his hand.

It was a crisp day, but the sun slanting into the window was warm. He leaned there, watching the birds—more were circling in now—and looking out over the industrial part of the city. The rude shapes were softened by haze and there was nothing noisy close by. He could almost imagine it as some country landscape.