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— Glad to see somebody who’s not afraid of work. Getting this budget across is going to take everything we can give it, they’ll be there with their hands on their wallets and their youngsters’ educations will be the last thing on their minds, take this shelter proposal if they have a good look at one before they pile in and tear the idea to pieces they…

— Hello…? Yes, yes send him right in…

— Mister…

— Congressman…?

— No it’s only, it’s Mister Skinner… she recovered her balance and her knees one to the other — I’ll be right out, she called at the figure retreating through the door weighted by a briefcase of Gladstone bag design past the threat of pinstripe coming up behind.

— Come in Senator come in, I know it’s still Congressman just getting in the habit…

— Mister…

— Whiteback, Major…

— diCephalis, Dan, the school…

— Great pleasure…

— Congressman…

— And Miss Flesch here kind of doubles in brass you might say, right Whiteback? Handles the curriculum, and she’s shaping up as a real video personality on the school tv. We’re just checking out a few items before the taxpayers get their teeth into this budget, Hyde went on as the blue stone ring borne on Pecci’s hand ceased darting about in handshakes and withdrew to highlight his pinstripe presence. — The only thing on their minds is their tax rate and most of them don’t even know that, right Whiteback? As president of the bank and principal of this school setup Whiteback here gets a grandstand look at both sides of the coin, take the whole idea of locating this Cultural Center here, I don’t see why we can’t tie it right in with…

— Once we have their confidence…

— Now whether or not a campaign for bringing about this kind of confidence is the best thing, I haven’t thought of that as a public relations problem, but let’s not forget above all things the need of confidence, and that…

— Of course, I think nationally, it’s what you and I think of the prospects…

— PRwise it can’t hurt us educationwise, Miss Flesch got in through bread.

— In fact, tie it all right into this shelter item too, let people have a look with your mobile tv unit. My boy could give it sort of a tour in fact, he knows it inside out. Wall thickness, ventilation, food storage waste disposal get in a little about what America really is, what we…

— Just give them an inch, like with the religious holidays if they all get off Good Friday the Jewish parents want them off Seder too…

— Is Seder a holiday? I thought it was a…

— Fight over prayers in the school and that gets us right into the transportation mess, they vote against busing the Catholic kids to parochial school and we can get thirteen hundred of them dumped on us over night, then where are we?

— And take this one, custodial salaries, two hundred and thirty-three-odd thousand, up from two seventeen…

— Ask Mister Leroy, that’s his baby.

— Right. You mention education and they grab for their wallets. Now here’s thirty-two thousand six hundred and seventy for blacktopping the parking lot over to the tv studio.

— That’s the only bid that came in.

— And there’s this twelve thousand dollars item for books.

— That’s supposed to be twelve hundred, the twelve thousand should be paper towels. Besides, there’s already that bequest for books for the library.

— Did it say books in so many words? No. It’s just a bequest for the library.

— Use it for a pegboard. You need a pegboard in a library. Books you don’t know what you’re getting into.

— Right. Remember Robin Hood? That man Schepperman…

— Schepperman! That reminds me that lettering over the front door, Gibbs’ idea…

— It’s worked so far but it can’t work forever, sooner or later somebody will show up who reads Greek. Then where are we?

— Up the creek, Miss Flesch obliged with a promptness that lost her some coffee down her chin, — like the smut mail.

— There’s an issue. The smut mail rise.

— My boy sent off for a ball glove and what he got back in the mail was…

— Mouthpiece puller, sleigh bells, strobotuner, choir risers, tympanies, marching bell and stand, two thousand five hundred and… what’s all that for?

— Breakage. Here, replacing glass, repairing doors, painting, refinishing and so forth, thirty-three thousand two eighty-five. Thirty-three thousand dollars for breakage, isn’t that what we’re really talking about? Plain unvarnished vandalism? And another fourteen thousand plus item down here, repairs and replacement, chairs, desks, project tables, pianos, same thing isn’t it? Breakage…?

— But two thousand dollars for filmstrips and five more on filmstrip projectors, movie projectors, record players, tape recorders, projection carts…

— It’s already on the books…

— That’s what I mean books, Miss Flesch scattered seeds. — All this audio-visual bla bla bla and we’ve practically promised Duncan and Company a textbook order to Mister Skinner for…

— Thirty-three and fourteen, that’s forty-three, forty-seven thousand on breakage.

— Waffle iron, sixty dollars?

— Predictable, deliberate, you might even say prescheduled breakage…