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the room with a bewildered expression. “They got some kind of cuckoo word down there that a lady up here wants to put gray in her hair.”
    “They got it right,” I said. “Except it isn’t a lady. It’s me.”
    She almost swallowed her gum. “Now I’ve heard everything,” she said. “You nuts or somethin’? I’m leavin’. You’re all cuckoo.”
    I pulled out the fifty and waved it in front of her face. “I mean it. Don’t go.”
    She looked up at me. “What you wanna go an’ do that for? You look like such a nice kid with your wavy brown hair.”
    “I’m up for a very big job,” I said seriously. “And they think I look too young to get it. Now you wouldn’t want me to lose my big chance, would you?”
    “No,” she said, hesitantly, her eyes going around the room. “I wouldn’t want to do a thing like that.”
    “All you have to do is to shade some gray into it. Not too much, just enough to age me a little.”
    “Sure,” she said. “I guess I can do that.”
    “Come on then,” I said and led the way into the bathroom. When I came back into the living room forty minutes later, I was dressed and ready to leave for the office.
    “I don’t believe it!” Jack sat bolt upright on the couch.
    They clustered around me. “What do you think?” I asked.
    Jack shook his head. “It’s got to be the greatest,” he said. “It really doesn’t make you look older, but it gives you a kind of solid authority. You know that I mean?”
    I knew what he meant. The edging of gray she combed into my hair somehow worked out just right with my eyes. I still looked young but not that young anymore.
    “Okay,” I said, going to the door. “Time to go down to the mines.”
    “Wait a minute,” Jack said. He picked up the loose-leaf book. “Don’t you want to take this with you?”
    I grinned. “Come on, teacher. Since when do they let you take the books into the examination room?”
    ***
    I was wrong about one thing. The offices weren’t duplicates. Sinclair’s conference room was bigger than mine. There were twenty-eight people at the table. I walked slowly around the table and shook hands with every one of them and tried to tie their names to what I had read last night. It worked pretty good. My memory was better than I thought.
    They were all very pro about it. I could see them studying me but not one of them cracked. They weren’t about to give me anything, they were going to sit it out until they could figure the drift.
    After ten minutes, Sinclair left with a casual remark about leaving the team to get acquainted. Ritchie left with him.
    There was a silence in the room now that you could really cut. I sat alone at the head of the table. And that’s just what I was. Alone.
    I glanced around the table. Strange how a little thing like gray hair helped even up the score. I kept my voice deliberately low so that they would have to strain to hear me.
    “You’re wondering about me and I’m wondering about you. None of us knows each other.
    “But in the next few months we’re going to find out. Some of you will like me, some of you will not. That’s unimportant.
    “What is important is that Sinclair Television is going to climb out of the cellar of broadcasting. What is important is the ratings. That’s the standard by which I will measure you and by which you will measure me.”
    I paused. They were still watching me. “In Washington, when a new president takes office, he is allowed a cabinet of his own choosing. I like that. It’s real democracy.”
    I could feel them tightening up. This was bottom-line talk. “I will expect each of you to submit his resignation effective thirty-one January and have it on my desk by tomorrow morning.”
    There was a collective explosive sigh. I waited a moment until they swallowed that. Then I threw out the lifeline.
    I got to my feet. “My secretary is preparing a schedule of appointments. Sometime within the next few days, I will meet individually with