The Cosmic Charge Account
The Cosmic Charge Account
The Lackawanna was still running one cautious morning train a day into Scranton, though the city was said to be emptying fast. Professor Leuten and I had a coach to ourselves, except for a scared, jittery trainman who hung around and talked at us.
“The name’s Pech,” he said. “And let me tell you, the Peches have been around for a mighty long time in these parts. There’s a town twenty-three miles north of Scranton named Pechville. Full of my cousins and aunts and uncles, and I used to visit there and we used to send picture post cards and get them, too. But my God, mister, what’s happened to them?”
His question was rhetorical. He didn’t realize that Professor Leuten and I happened to be the only two people outside the miscalled Plague Area who could probably answer it.
“Mr. Pech,” I said, “if you don’t mind we’d like to talk some business.”
“Sorry,” he said miserably, and went on to the next car.
When we were alone Professor Leuten remarked: “An interesting reaction.” He was very smooth about it. Without the slightest warning he whipped a huge, writhing, hairy spider from his pocket and thrust it at my face.
I was fast on the draw too. In one violent fling I was standing on my left foot in the aisle, thumbing my nose, my tongue stuck out. Gooseflesh rippled down my neck and shoulders.
“Very good,” he said, and put the spider away. It was damnably realistic. Even knowing that it was a gadget of twisted springs and plush, I cringed at the thought of its nestling in his pocket. With me it was spiders. With the professor it was rats and asphyxiation. Toward the end of our mutual training program it took only one part per million of sulfur dioxide gas in his vicinity to send him whirling into the posture of defense, crane-like on one leg, tongue out and thumb to nose, the sweat of terror on his brow.
“I have something to tell you, Professor,” I said. “So?” he asked tolerantly. And that did it. The tolerance. I had been prepared to make my point with a dignified recital and apology, but there were two ways to tell the story and I suddenly chose the second. “You’re a phoney,” I said with satisfaction. “WhatT he gasped.
“A phoney. A fake. A hoaxer. A self-deluding crackpot. Your Functional Epistemology is a farce. Let’s not go into this thing kidding ourselves.”
His accent thickened a little. “Led me remind you, Mr. Morris, that you are addressing a Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Gottingen and a member of the faculty of the University of Basle.”
“You mean a privat-dozent who teaches freshman logic. And I seem to remember that Gottingen revoked your degree.”
He said slowly: “I have known all along that you were a fool, Mr. Norris. Not until now did I realize that you are also an anti-Semite. It was the Nazis who went through an illegal ceremony of revocation.”
“So that makes me an anti-Semite. From a teacher of logic that’s very funny.” “You are correct,” he said after a long pause. “I with-
draw my remark. Now, would you be good enough to amplify yours?”
“Gladly, Professor. In the first place—”
I had been winding up the rubber rat in my pocket. I yanked it out and tossed it into his lap where it scrabbled and clawed. He yelled with terror, but the yell didn’t cost him a split second. Almost before it started from his throat he was standing one-legged, thumb to nose, tongue stuck out.
He thanked me coldly, I congratulated him coldly, I pocketed the rat while he shuddered and we went on with the conversation.
I told him how, eighteen months ago, Mr. Hopedale called me into his office. Nice office, oak panels, signed pictures of Hopedale Press writers from our glorious past: Kipling, Barrie, Theodore Roosevelt and the rest of the backlog boys.
What about Eino Elekinen, Mr. Hopedale wanted to know. Eino was one of our novelists. His first, Vinland The Good, had been a critical success and a popular flop; Cubs of the Viking Breed, the sequel, made us all a little money. He was now a month past delivery date on the final volume of the trilogy and the end was not in sight.