Stranger in a Strange Land

mind!"
                "Take it easy. Nobody is trying to make you get married, I promise you-why, I haven't even painted my shotgun white. While I am not snoopy and I never hold a bed check around here and I really do, so help me by all the Billion Names of God, believe in not poking my nose into other people's business, nevertheless while I may be out of my mind-a 'least hypothesis' more than once, the last couple of years-I do have normal eyesight and hearing . . . and if a brass band parades through my home, fortissimo, I'll notice it eventually. Question: You've slept under this roof dozens of times. Did you, on at least one of those nights, sleep alone?"
                "Why, you scoundrel! Uh, I slept alone the very first night I was ever here."
                "Dorcas must have been off her feed. No, I remember, you were under sedative that night. You were my patient-doesn't count. Some other night? Just one?"
                "Your question is irrelevant, immaterial, and beneath my notice."
                "That's an adequate answer, I think. But please note that the added bedrooms are as far from my bedroom as possible. Soundproofing is never perfect."
                "Jubal, it seems to me that your name is much higher up that list than mine can possibly be."
                "What?"
                "Not to mention Larry and Duke. But, Jubal, almost everybody who knows you assumes that you are keeping the fanciest harem since the Sultan went out of business. Oh, don't misunderstand me-they envy you. But they think you're a lecherous old goat, too."
                Jubal drummed on the arm of his chair before replying. "Ben, I ordinarily do not mind being treated flippantly by my juniors. I encourage it, as you know. But in some matters I insist that my years be treated with respect. This is one of them."
                "Sorry," Ben said stiffly. "I thought if it was all right for you to kick my sex life around, you would not mind my being equally frank."
                "No, no, no, Ben!-you misunderstand me. Your inquiry was in order and your side comments no more than I had invited. I mean that I require the girls to treat me with respect-on this one subject."
                "Oh-"
                "I am, as you pointed out, old-quite old. Privately, to you alone, I am happy to say that I am still lecherous. But my lechery does not command me and I am not a goat. I prefer dignity and self-respect to indulging in pastimes which, believe me, I have already enjoyed in full measure and do not need to repeat. Ben, a man my age, who looks like a slum clearance in its most depressing stages, can attract a young girl enough to bed her- and possibly big her and thanks for the compliment; it just possibly might not be amiss-through three means only: money . . . or second, the equivalent of money in terms of wills and community property and the like and-pause for question: Can you imagine any of these three girls- these four, let me include Jill-bedding with a man, even a young and handsome one, for those reasons?"
                "No. Categorical no-not any of them."
                "Thank you, sir. I associate only with ladies; I see that you know it. The third incentive is a most female one. A sweet young girl can, and sometimes does, take an old wreck to bed because she is fond of him and sorry for him and wishes to make him happy. Would that reason apply here?"
                "Uh ... yes, Jubal, I think it might. With all four of them."
                "I think it might, too. Although I'd hate like hell to have any of them sorry for me. But this third reason which any of these four ladies might find sufficient motivation is not sufficient motivation for me. I wouldn't put up with it. I have my dignity, sir-and I hope that I retain my reason long enough to extinguish myself if it ever appears about to slip. So please take my name off the list."
                Caxton grinned. "Okay-you stiff-necked old coot. I just hope that when I am your age I won't be so all-fired hard to tempt."
                Jubal smiled. "Believe me, it's better to be tempted and resist, than not to resist and be disappointed. Now about Duke and Larry: I don't know nor care. Whenever anyone has come here, to work and live as a member of the family, I have made it bluntly plain that this