Machine Of Death

In the months afterward, in suburban dining rooms, the bohemian bourgeoisie debated the ethics of the machine. The first had been installed unobtrusively in leading doctors' surgeries, and as they spread across the country, schoolteachers and bank managers and creative consultants and publishers met for cocktail parties, suppers, restaurant lunches, and the conversation turned to the machine, the machine, again and again, the machine. "I saw one," said Kate Boothroyd, sucking on a cigarette, "on Kensington High Street. There was a line a bloody mile long--madness." A temporary silence settled over the Broads' dining table, broken by the hostess. "And would you?"