A mood was upon Kevan MacGreene. As of the moment, he did not consider this the best of all possible worlds. In fact, many arguments to the contrary were running through his head—on shoes of iron, it seemed. Only twenty-five years of age, Kevan MacGreene was foot-loose and fancy free, but his thoughts were cast in gloom and darkly shaped.
It was 1952 and the threats of atomic warfare appeared almost daily in the newspapers. The cost of living continued to go up. The prisons and asylums were overflowing. Congress, having investigated everything else, had formed a Goober-Natural Committee (fifteen governors had misunderstood and resigned the first day it was announced) and were knee-deep in peanuts. The Soviet representative had just stormed out of another U.N. meeting. The American represe
