"As yet, I have seen none," said Johnson, bluntly. "Suppose you
enlighten me some more."
"Opportunities...."
"We covered that before."
"But have we? Consider, Sir; you are wealthy, powerful, in spite of
your, ah, handicap." He glanced away as Johnson inspected his hand.
"Just think what might have happened had you not been injured? Who can
say what new avenues might be opened to you?"
"How much?"
"Then you'll do it?" asked Cavendish, eagerly.
"Perhaps. How much do you need?"
"I have my equipment all ready. But I need a great deal of power to
operate it. You are one of the directors of Public Power; I need your
signature on releases for the necessary leads and, of course, the power
itself."
"You shall have them. When can we be ready to operate?"
Cavendish pursed his lips. "With PP technicians running in the new
lines--three days."
"Very well. I'll be back."
* * * * *
T. Arthur Johnson had not, as he had told Cavendish, been a man to
pass up an opportunity. Forty years of fighting and clawing his way up
through the jungle of business competition had sharpened his senses and
heightened his awareness of what one fatal mistake could do.
Still, no man is infallible; all miss out on something, sometime. Some
men go through their entire lives making the wrong decisions; they end
up failures.
T. Arthur Johnson was a qualified success. Qualified, for, although
successful he might be, as a man he was not happy. It is rarely
that the two go hand-in-hand. Happiness and success often seem to
be mutually exclusive goals. Yet contentment is a close cousin of
happiness, and many let themselves be satisfied with second best.
After checking with Cavendish to find out just how much time would have
to be invested in the experiments, Johnson arranged his affairs into
the hands of several trusted managers--trusted because they were owned,
body and soul, by Johnson. On the morning of the third day, as the last
of the Public Power trucks was leaving the warehouse in which Cavendish
had set up his laboratory, Johnson presented himself at the door.
* * * * *
"Ah, Mr. Johnson." His eyes lit up. "Right on time. I suppose you are
as anxious as I to get on with the experiments."
"Time is valuable," said Johnson. "I don't believe in wasting it. Shall
we get on with it?"
"Of course."
The lab seemed little changed from Johnson's earlier visit. An
adjustable lounge chair had been set up near the screen; from it,
lines ran into a panel of equipment that the industrialist found
incomprehensible. At Cavendish's gesture, he sat down and permitted
electrodes to be attached to his head and arms.
"Comfortable, Sir?"
"Quite."
Cavendish adjusted switches; the screen came to life, showing the
earlier scene with the youthful Johnson just beginning his dash into
the alley.
"We regress some twenty-seven hours more," he said. The scene dissolved
and was replaced by one with the boy in a classroom. The clock on the
wall read three-thirty; school had been out some fifteen minutes. Timmy
Johnson placed the last of the erasers in the blackboard trough and
checked the stack of workbooks with his eye, stopping to shift the top
one a quarter of an inch into better alignment.
"We are now approaching the crisis point," said Cavendish. "The
blending of the adult Id with that of the boy will enable you to
control the actions of the boy."
"Get on with it!" said Johnson, impatiently, anxious to have the affair
over with.
"Very well." Cavendish closed several switches and the hum of vast
amounts of power pouring into the little room rose until it set the
hackles of the men's necks rising. Still it rose, until Cavendish
closed one final switch--
* * * * *
"All done, Mrs. Taylor."
"Thank you, Timmy." She glanced up from the stack of papers and smiled
at the boy. "I swear, I don't know what I'd do without you. You're the
best helper I ever had."
Timmy glowed at the praise; he felt the back of his neck warming. It
was fun helping her out, no matter what the other kids said or thought.
He scuffed the toe of his sneaker against the heel of the other one.
"Well, I guess I'd better be getting home, Mrs. Taylor. Mom usually
wants me to run to the store for her after school."
"All right, Timmy. Good night."
"Good night." He lingered in the door for a last smile from the woman,
then ran down the stairs to the lockers on the basement corridors.
He stowed his books in his locker, then twirled the dial on the
combination lock, bought with money saved out of his allowance.
Timmy started towards the exit, when suddenly he heard voices coming
from the boys' shower room.
"Aw, come on, Janie! What's the harm in having a little peek?"
"With your big eyes, Danny Grissome, a lot!"