ONE

_Albert Weener Begins_

_1._ I always knew I should write a book. Something to help tired minds

lay aside the cares of the day. But I always say you never can tell

what's around the corner till you turn it, and everyone has become so

accustomed to fantastic occurrences in the last twenty one years that

the inspiring and relaxing novel I used to dream about would be today as

unreal as Atlantis. Instead, I find I must write of the things which

have happened to me in that time.

It all began with the word itself.

"Grass. Gramina. The family Gramineae. Grasses."

"Oh," I responded doubtfully. The picture in my mind was only of a vague

area in parks edged with benches for the idle.

Anyway, I was far too resentful to pay strict attention. I had set out

in good faith, not for the first time in my career as a salesman, to

answer an ad offering "$50 or more daily to top producers," naturally

expecting the searching onceover of an alert salesmanager, back to the

light, behind a shinytopped desk. When youve handled as many products as

I had an ad like that has the right sound. But the world is full of

crackpots and some of the most pernicious are those who hoodwink

unsuspecting canvassers into anticipating a sizzling deal where there is

actually only a warm hope. No genuinely highclass proposition ever came

from a layout without aggressiveness enough to put on some kind of

front; working out of an office, for instance, not an outdated, rundown

apartment in the wrong part of Hollywood.

"It's only a temporary drawback, Weener, which restricts the

Metamorphizer's efficacy to grasses."

The wheeling syllables, coming in a deep voice from the middleaged

woman, emphasized the absurdity of the whole business. The snuffy

apartment, the unhomelike livingroom--dust and books its only

furniture--the unbelievable kitchen, looking like a pictured warning to

housewives, were only guffaws before the final buffoonery of discovering

the J S Francis who'd inserted that promising ad to be Josephine Spencer

Francis. Wrong location, wrong atmosphere, wrong gender.

Now I'm not the sort of man who would restrict women to a place in the

nursery. No indeed, I believe they are in some ways just as capable as I

am. If Miss Francis had been one of those wellgroomed, efficient ladies

who have earned their place in the business world without at the same

time sacrificing femininity, I'm sure I would not have suffered such a

pang for my lost time and carfare.

But wellgroomed and feminine were alike inapplicable adjectives.

Towering above me--she was at least five foot ten while I am of average

height--she strode up and down the kitchen which apparently was office

and laboratory also, waving her arms, speaking too exuberantly, the

antithesis of moderation and restraint. She was an aggregate of

cylinders, big and small. Her shapeless legs were columns with large

flatheeled shoes for their bases, supporting the inverted pediment of

great hips. Her too short, greasespotted skirt was a mighty barrel and

on it was placed the tremendous drum of her torso.

"A little more work," she rumbled, "a few interesting problems solved,

and the Metamorphizer will change the basic structure of any plant

inoculated with it."

Large as she was, her face and head were disproportionately big. Her

eyes I can only speak of as enormous. I dare say there are some who

would have called them beautiful. In moments of intensity they bored

into mine and held them till I felt quite uncomfortable.

"Think of what this discovery means," she urged me. "Think of it,

Weener. Plants will be capable of making use of anything within reach.

Understand, Weener, anything. Rocks, quartz, decomposed

granite--anything."

She took a gold victorian toothpick from the pocket of her mannish

jacket and used it energetically. I shuddered. "Unfortunately," she went

on, a little indistinctly, "unfortunately, I lack resources for further

experiment right now--"

This too, I thought despairingly. A slight cash investment--just enough

to get production started--how many wishful times Ive heard it. I was a

salesman, not a sucker, and anyway I was for the moment without liquid

capital.

"It will change the face of the world, Weener. No more usedup areas, no

more frantic scrabbling for the few bits of naturally rich ground, no

more struggle to get artificial fertilizers to wornout soil in the face

of ignorance and poverty."

She thrust out a hand--surprisingly finely and economically molded,

barely missing a piledup heap of dishes crowned by a flowerpot trailing

droopy tendrils. Excitedly she paced the floor largely taken up by jars

and flats of vegetation, some green and flourishing, others gray and

sickly, all constricting her movements as did the stove supporting a

glass tank, robbed of the goldfish which should rightfully have gaped

against its sides and containing instead some slimy growth topped by a

bubbling brown scum. I simply couldnt understand how any woman could so

far oppose what must have been her natural instinct as to live and work

in such a slatternly place. It wasnt just her kitchen which was

disordered and dirty; her person too was slovenly and possibly unclean.

The lank gray hair swishing about her ears was dark, perhaps from vigor,

but more likely from frugality with soap and water. Her massive,

heavychinned face was untouched by makeup and suggested an equal

innocence of other attentions.

"Fertilizers! Poo! Expedients, Weener--miserable, makeshift expedients!"

Her unavoidable eyes bit into mine. "What is a fertilizer? A tidbit, a

pap, a lollypop. Indians use fish; Chinese, nightsoil; agricultural

chemists concoct tasty tonics of nitrogen and potash--where's your

progress? Putting a mechanical whip on a buggy instead of inventing an

internal combustion engine. Ive gone directly to the heart of the

matter. Like Watt. Like Maxwell. Like Almroth Wright. No use being held

back because youve only poor materials to work with--leap ahead with

imagination. Change the plant itself, Weener, change the plant itself!"

It was no longer politeness which held me. If I could have freed myself

from her eyes I would have escaped thankfully.

"Nourish'm on anything," she shouted, rubbing the round end of the

toothpick vigorously into her ear. "Sow a barren waste, a worthless

slagheap with lifegiving corn or wheat, inoculate the plants with the

Metamorphizer--and you have a crop fatter than Iowa's or the Ukraine's

best. The whole world will teem with abundance."

Perhaps--but what was the sales angle? Where did I come in? I didnt know

a dandelion from a toadstool and was quite content to keep my distance

from nature. Had she inserted the ad merely to lure a listener? Her

whole procedure was irregular: not a word about territories and

commissions. If I could bring her to the point of mentioning the

necessary investment, maybe I could get away gracefully. "You said you

were stuck," I prompted, resolved to get the painful interview over

with.

"Stuck? Stuck? Oh--money to perfect the Metamorphizer. Luckily it will

do it itself."

"I don't catch."

"Look about you--what do you see?"

I glanced around and started to say, a measuring glass on a dirty plate

next to half a cold fried egg, but she stopped me with a sweep of her

arm which came dangerously close to the flasks and retorts--all holding

dirtycolored liquids--which cluttered the sink. "No, no. I mean

outside."

I couldnt see outside, because instead of a window I was facing a sickly

leaf unaccountably preserved in a jar of alcohol. I said nothing.

"Metaphorically, of course. Wheatfields. Acres and acres of wheat.

Bread, wheat, a grass. And cornfields. Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois--not a

state in the Union without corn. Milo, oats, sorghum, rye--all grasses.

And the Metamorphizer will work on all of them."

I'm always a man with an open mind. She might--it was just possible--she

might have something afterall. But could I work with her? Go out in the

sticks and talk to farmers; learn to sit on fence rails and whittle,

asking after crops as if they were of interest to me? No, no ... it was

fantastic, out of the question.

A different, more practical setup now.... At least there would have been

no lack of prospects, if you wanted to go miles from civilization to

find them; no answers like We never read magazines, thank you. Of course

it was hardly believable a woman without interest in keeping herself

presentable could invent any such fabulous product, but there was a bare

chance of making a few sales just on the idea.

The idea. It suddenly struck me she had the whole thing backwards.

Grasses, she said, and went on about wheat and corn and going out to the

rubes. Southern California was dotted with lawns, wasnt it? Why rush

around to the hinterland when there was a big territory next door? And

undoubtedly a better one?

"Revive your old tired lawn," I improvised. "No manures, fuss, cuss, or

muss. One shot of the Meta--one shot of Francis' Amazing Discovery and

your lawn springs to new life."

"Lawns? Nonsense!" she snorted, rudely, I thought. "Do you think Ive

spent years in order to satisfy suburban vanity? Lawns indeed!"

"Lawns indeed, Miss Francis," I retorted with some spirit. "I'm a

salesman and I know something about marketing a product. Yours should be

sold to householders for their lawns."

"Should it? Well, I say it shouldnt. Listen to me: there are two ways of

making a discovery. One is to cut off a cat's hindleg. The discovery is

then made that a cat with one leg cut off has three legs. Hah!

"The other way is to find out your need and then search for a method of

filling it. My work is with plants. I don't take a daisy and see if I

can make it produce a red and black petaled monstrosity. If I did I'd be

a fashionable horticulturist, delighted to encourage imbeciles to grow

grass in a desert.

"My method is the second one. I want no more backward countries; no more

famines in India or China; no more dustbowls; no more wars, depressions,

hungry children. For this I produced the Metamorphizer--to make not two

blades of grass grow where one sprouted before, but whole fields

flourish where only rocks and sandpiles lay.

"No, Weener, it won't do--I can't trade in my vision as a downpayment on

a means to encourage a waste of ground, seed and water. You may think I

lost such rights when I thought up the name Metamorphizer to appeal on

the popular level, but there's a difference."

That was a clincher. Anyone who believed Metamorphizer had salesappeal

just wasnt all there. But why should I disillusion her and wound her

pride? Down underneath her rough exterior I supposed she could be as

sensitive as I; and I hope I am not without chivalry.

I said nothing, but of course her interdiction of the only possibility

killed any weakening inclination. And yet ... yet.... Afterall, I had to

have _something_....

"All right, Weener. This pump--" she produced miraculously from the

jumble an unwieldy engine dragging a long and tangling tail of hose

behind it, the end lost among mementos of unfinished meals "--this pump

is full of the Metamorphizer, enough to inoculate a hundred and fifty

acres when added in proper proportion to the irrigating water. I have a

table worked out to show you about that. The tank holds five gallons;

get $50 a gallon--a dollar and a half an acre and keep ten percent for

yourself. Be sure to return the pump every night."

I had to say for her that when she got down to business she didnt waste

any words. Perhaps this contrasting directness so startled me I was

roped in before I could refuse. On the other hand, of course, I would be

helping out someone who needed my assistance badly, since she couldnt,

with all the obvious factors against her, be having a very easy time.

Sometimes it is advisable to temper business judgment with kindness.

Her first offer was ridiculous in its assumption that a salesman's

talent, skill and effort were worth only a miserable ten percent, as

though I were a literary agent with something a cinch to sell. I began

to feel more at home as we ironed out the details and I brought the

knowledge acquired with much hard work and painful experience into the

bargaining. Fifty percent I wanted and fifty percent I finally got by

demanding seventyfive. She became as interested in the contest as she

had been before in benefits to humanity and I perceived a keen mind

under all her eccentricity.

I can't truthfully say I got to like her, but I reconciled myself and

eventually was on my way with the pump--a trifling weight to Miss

Francis, judging by the way she handled it, but uncomfortably heavy to

me--strapped to my back and ten feet of recalcitrant hose coiled round

my shoulder. She turned her imperious eyes on me again and repeated for

the fourth or fifth time the instructions for applying, as though I were

less intelligent than she. I went out through the barren livingroom and

took a backward glance at the scaling stucco walls of the

apartmenthouse, shaking my head. It was a queer place for Albert Weener,

the crackerjack salesman who had once led his team in a national contest

to put over a threepiece aluminum deal, to be working out of. And for a

woman. And for such a woman....

_2._ Everything is for the best, is my philosophy and Make your cross

your crutch is a good thought to hold; so I reminded myself that it

takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown and no one sees the bright

side of things if he wears dark glasses. Since it takes all kinds to

make a world and Josephine Spencer Francis was one of those kinds, wasnt

it only reasonable to suppose there were other kinds who would buy the

stuff she'd invented? The only way to sell something is first to sell

yourself and I piously went over the virtues of the Metamorphizer in my

mind. What if by its very nature there could be no repeat business? I

wasnt tying myself to it for life.

All that remained was to find myself a customer. I tried to recall the

location of the nearest rural territory. San Fernando valley,

probably--a long, tiresome trip. And expensive, unless I wished to

demean myself by thumbing rides--a difficult thing to do, burdened as I

was by the pump. If she hadnt balked unreasonably about putting the

stuff on lawns, I'd have prospects right at hand.

I was suddenly lawnconscious. There was probably not a Los Angeles

street I hadnt covered at some time--magazines, vacuums, old gold,

nearnylons--and I must have been aware of green spaces before

most of the houses, but now for the first time I saw lawns. Neat,

sharply confined, smoothshaven lawns. Sagging, slipping,

eager-to-keep-up-appearances but fighting-a-losing-game lawns. Ragged,

weedy, dissolute lawns. Halfbare, repulsively crippled, hummocky lawns.

Bright lawns, insistent on former respectability and trimness; yellow

and gray lawns, touched with the craziness of age, quite beyond all

interest in looks, content to doze easily in the sun. If Miss Francis'

mixture was on the upandup and she hadnt introduced a perfectly

unreasonable condition--why, I couldnt miss.

On the other hand, I thought suddenly, I'm the salesman, not she. It was

up to me as a practical man to determine where and how I could sell to

the best advantage. With sudden resolution I walked over a twinkling

greensward and rang the bell.

"Good afternoon, madam. I can see from your garden youre a lady who's

interested in keeping it lovely."

"Not my garden and Mrs Smith's not home." The door shut. Not gently.

The next house had no lawn at all, but was fronted with a rank growth of

ivy. I felt no one had a right to plant ivy when I was selling something

effective only on the family Gramineae. I tramped over the ivy hard and

rang the doorbell on the other side.

"Good afternoon, madam. I can see from the appearance of your lawn youre

a lady who really cares for her garden. I'm introducing to a restricted

group--just one or two in each neighborhood--a new preparation, an

astounding discovery by a renowned scientist which will make your grass

twice as green and many times as vigorous upon one application, without

the aid of anything else, natural or artificial."

"My gardener takes care of all that."

"But, madam--"

"There is a city ordinance against unlicensed solicitors. Have you a

license, young man?"

After the fifth refusal I began to think less unkindly of Miss Francis'

idea of selling the stuff to farmers and to wonder what was wrong with

my technique. After some understandable hesitation--for I don't make a

practice of being odd or conspicuous--I sat down on the curb to think.

Besides, the pump was getting wearisomely heavy. I couldnt decide

exactly what was unsatisfactory in my routine. The stuff had neither

been used nor advertised, so there could be no prejudice against it; no

one had yet allowed me to get so far as quoting price, so it wasnt too

expensive.

The process of elimination brought me to the absurd conclusion that the

fault must lie in me. Not in my appearance, I reasoned, for I was a

personable young man, a little over thirty at the time, with no obvious

defects a few visits to the dentist wouldnt have removed. Of course I do

have an unfortunate skin condition, but such a thing's an act of God, as

the lawyers say, and people must take me as I am.

No, it wasnt my appearance ... or was it? That monstrously outsized

pump! Who wanted to listen to a salestalk from a man apparently prepared

for an immediate gasattack? There is little use in pressing your

trousers between two boards under the mattress if you discount such

neatness with the accouterment of an invading Martian. I uncoiled the

hose from my shoulder and eased the incubus from my back. Leaving them

visible from the corner of my eye, I crossed the most miserable lawn yet

encountered.

It was composed of what I since learned is Bermuda, a plant most

Southern Californians call--with many profane prefixes--devilgrass. It

was yellow, the dirty, grayish yellow of moldy straw; and bald, scuffed

spots immodestly exposed the cracked, parched earth beneath. Over the

walk, interwoven stolons had been felted down into a ragged mat,

repellent alike to foot and eye. Perversely, onto what had once been

flowerbeds, the runners crept erect, bristling spines showing faintly

green on top--the only live color in the miserable expanse. Where the

grass had gone to seed there were patches of muddy purple, patches which

enhanced rather than relieved the diseased color of the whole and

emphasized the dying air of the yard. It was a neglected, unvalued

thing; an odious appendage, a mistake never rectified.

"Madam," I began, "your lawn is deplorable." There was no use giving her

the line about I-can-see-you-are-a-lady-who-cares-for-lovely-things.

Anyway, now the pump was off my back I felt reckless. I threw the whole

book of salesmanship away. "It's the most neglected lawn in the

neighborhood. It is, madam, I'm sorry to say, no less than a disgrace."

She was a woman beyond the age of childbearing, her dress revealing the

outlines of her corset, and she looked at me coldly through rimless

glassing biting the bridge of her inadequate nose. "So what?" she asked.

"Madam," I said, "for ten dollars I can make this the finest lawn in the

block, the pride of your family and the envy of your neighbors."

"I can do better things with ten dollars than spend it on a bunch of

dead grass."

Gratefully I knew I had her then and was glad I hadnt weakly given in to

an impulse to carry out the crackpot's original instructions. When they

start to argue, my motto is, theyre sold. I took a good breath and wound

up for the clincher.

I won't say she was an easy sale, but afterall I'm a psychologist; I

found all her weak points and touched them expertly. Even so, she made

me cut my price in half, leaving me only twofifty according to my

agreement with Miss Francis, but it was an icebreaker.

I got the pump and hose, collecting at the same time an audience of

brats who assisted me by shouting, "What ya goin a do, mister?" "What's

at thing for, mister?" "You goin a water Mrs Dinkman's frontyard,

mister?" "Do your teeth awwis look so funny, mister? My grampa takes his

teeth out at night and puts'm in a glass of water. Do you take out your

teeth at night, mister?" "You goin a put that stuff on our garden too,

mister?" "Hay, Shirley--come on over and see the funnylooking man who's

fixing up Dinkman's yard."

They were untiring, shrilling their questions, exclamations and

comments, completely driving from my mind the details of the actual

application of the Metamorphizer. Anyway, Miss Francis had been

concerned with putting it in the irrigation water--which didnt apply in

this case. I thought a moment. A gallon was enough for thirty acres;

half a pint should suffice for this--more than suffice. Irrigation

water, nonsense--I'd squirt it on and tell the woman to hose it down

afterward--that'd be the same as putting it in the water, wouldnt it?

To come to this practical conclusion under the brunt of the children's

assault was a remarkable feat. As I dribbled the stuff over the sorry

devilgrass they kicked the pump--and my shins--mimicking my actions,

tripping me as they skipped under my legs, getting wet with the

Metamorphizer--I hoped with mutually deleterious effect--and generally

making me more than ever thankful for my bachelor condition.

Twofifty, I thought, angrily squirting a fine mist at a particularly

dreary spot--and it isnt even selling. Manual labor. Working with my

hands. I might as well be a gardener. College training. Wide experience.

Alert and aggressive. In order to dribble stuff smelling sickeningly of

carnations on a wasted yard. I coiled up my hose disgustedly and

collected a reluctant five dollars.

"It don't look any different," commented Mrs Dinkman dubiously.

"Madam, Professor Francis' remarkable discovery works miracles, but not

in the twinkling of an eye. In a week youll see for yourself, provided

of course you wet it down properly."

"In a week youll be far gone with my five dollars," diagnosed Mrs

Dinkman.

While this might be superficially true, it was an unfair and unkind

thing to say, and it wounded me. I reached into my pocket and drew out

an old card--one printed before I'd had an irreconcilable difference

with the firm employing me at the time.

"I can always be reached at this address, Mrs Dinkman," I said, "should

you have any cause for dissatisfaction--which I'm sure is quite

impossible. Besides, I shall be daily in this district demonstrating the

value of Dr Francis' Lawn Tonic."

That was certainly true; unless I made a better connection. Degrading

manual labor or not, I intended to sell as many local people as possible

on the strength of having found a weak spot in the wall of

salesresistance before the effects of the Metamorphizer became apparent.

For, in strict confidence, and despite its being an undesirable negative

attitude, I was a little dubious that those effects--or lack of

them--would stimulate further sales.

_3._ My alarmclock, as it did every morning, Sundays included, rang at

sixthirty, for I am a man of habit. I turned it off, remembering

instantly I had given Miss Francis neither her pump nor her share of the

sale. Of course it was more convenient and timesaving to bring them both

together and I was sure she didnt expect me to follow instructions to

the letter, like an officeboy, any more in these matters than she had in

her restriction to agricultural use.

Still, it was remiss of me. The fact is, I had spent her money as well

as my own--not on dissipation, I hasten to say, but on dinner and an

installment of my roomrent. This was embarrassing, but I looked upon it

merely as an advance--quite as if I'd had the customary

drawingaccount--to be charged against my next commissions. My acceptance

of the advance merely indicated my faith in the future of the

Metamorphizer.

I dissolved a yeastcake in a glass of water; it's very healthy and I'd

heard it alleviated dermal irritations. Lathering my face, I glanced

over the list culled from the dictionary and stuck in the mirror the

night before, for I have never been too tired to improve my mind. By

this easy method of increasing my vocabulary I had progressed, at the

time, down to the letter K.

While drinking my coffee--never more than two cups--it was my custom to

read and digest stock and bond quotations, for though I had no

investments--the only time I had been able to take a flurry there was an

unforeseen recession in the market--I thought a man who didnt keep up

with trends and conditions unfitted for a place in the businessworld.

Besides, I didnt expect to be straitened indefinitely and I believed in

being ready to take proper advantage of opportunity when it came.

As a man may devote the graver part of his mind to a subject and then

turn for relaxation to a lighter aspect, so I had for years been

interested in a stock called Consolidated Pemmican and Allied

Concentrates. It wasnt a highpriced issue, nor were its fluctuations

startling. For six months of the year, year in and year out, it would be

quoted at 1/16 of a cent a share; for the other six months it stood at

1/8. I didnt know what pemmican was and I didnt particularly care, but

if a man could invest at 1/16 he could double his money overnight when

it rose to 1/8. Then he could reverse the process by selling before it

went down and so snowball into fortune. It was a daydream, but a

harmless one.

Satisfying myself Consolidated Pemmican was bumbling along at its low

level, I reluctantly prepared to resume Miss Francis' pump. It seemed

less heavy as I wound the hose over my shoulder and I felt this wasnt

due to the negligible quantity I'd expended on Mrs Dinkman's grass. I

just knew I was going to have a successful day. I had to.

In moments of fancy I often think a salesman is more truly a creative

artist than many of those who arrogate the title to themselves. He uses

words, on one hand, and the receptivity of prospects on the other, to

mold a cohesive and satisfying whole, a work of Art, signed and dated on

the dotted line. Like any such work, the creation implies thoughtful and

careful preparation. So it was that I got off the bus, polishing a new

salestalk to fit the changed situation. "One of your neighbors ..." "I

have just applied ..." I sneered my way past those houses refusing my

services the day before; they couldnt have the Metamorphizer at any

price now. Then it hit my eyes.

Mrs Dinkman's lawn, I mean.

The one so neglected, ailing and yellow only yesterday.

It wasnt sad and sickly now. The most enthusiastic homeowner wouldnt

have disdained it. There wasnt a single bare spot visible in the whole

lush, healthy expanse. And it was green. Green. Not just here and there,

but over every inch of soft, undulating surface; a pale applegreen where

the blades waved to expose its underparts and a rich, dazzling emerald

on top. Even the runners, sinuously encroaching upon the sidewalk, were

deeply virescent.

The Metamorphizer worked.

The Metamorphizer not only worked, but it worked with unbelievable

rapidity. Overnight. I knew nothing about the speed at which ordinary

fertilizers, plant stimulants or hormones took hold, but commonsense

told me nothing like this had ever happened so quickly. I had been

indulging in a little legitimate puffery in saying the inoculant worked

miracles, but if anything that had been an understatement. It just went

to show how impossible it is for a real salesman to be too enthusiastic.

Nerves in knees and fingers quivering, I walked over to join the group

curiously inspecting the translated lawn. I, _I_ had done this; out of

the most miserable I'd made the loveliest--and for a paltry five

dollars. I tried to recapture the memory of what it had looked like in

order to relish the contrast more, but it was impossible; the vivid

present blotted out the decayed past completely.

"Overnight," someone said. "Yessir, just overnight. Wouldnt of believed

it if I hadnt noticed just yesterday how much worse an the city dump it

looked."

"Bet at stuff's ten inches high."

"Brother, you can say that again. Foot'd be closer."

"Anyhow it's uh fattestlookin grass I seen sence I lef Texas."

"An the greenest. Guess I never did see such a green before."

While they exclaimed about the beauty and vigor of the growth, my mind

was racing in high along practical lines. Achievement isnt worth much

unless you can harness it, and in today's triumph I saw tomorrow's

benefit. No more canvassing with a pump undignifiedly on my back, no

more manual labor; no, bold as the thought was, not even any more direct

selling for me. This was big, too big to be approached in any cockroach,

build-up-slowly-from-the-bottom way. It was a real top deal, in a class

with nylon or jukeboxes or bubblegum. You could smell the money in it.

First of all I'd have to tie Josephine Francis down with an ironclad

contract. Agents; dealerships; distributors and a general salesmanager,

Albert Weener, at the top. Incorporate. Get it all down in black and

white and signed by Miss Francis right away. For her own good. An

idealistic scientist, a frail woman, protect her from the vultures who'd

try to rob her as soon as they saw what the Metamorphizer would do. Such

a woman wouldnt have any business sense. I'd see she got a comfortable

living out of it and free her from responsibility. Then she could potter

around all she liked.

Incorporate. Interest big money. Put it on a nationwide basis. A cut for

the general salesmanager on every sale. Besides stock. Take the patent

in the company's name. In six months I'd be on my way to being a

millionaire. I had certainly been right up on my toes in picking the

Metamorphizer as a winner in spite of Miss Francis' kitchen and her lack

of aggressiveness. Instinct, the unerring instinct of a wideawake

salesman for the right product--and for the right market. I mustnt

forget that. Had I been content with her original limitation I'd still

be bumbling around trying to interest Farmer Hicks in some Metamorphizer

for his hay.

"Ja notice how thick it was?"

"Well, that's Bermuda for you. Tell me they actually plant it on purpose

in Florida."

"No kiddin?"

"Yessir. Know one thing--even if it looks pretty right now, I wouldnt

want that stuff on my place. Have to cut it every day."

"Bet ya. Toughlookin too. I rather take my exercise in bed."

That's an angle, I thought--have to get old lady Francis to modify her

formula or something. Else we'll never get rich. Slow down the rate of

growth, dilute it--ought to be more profitable too.... Have to find out

how cheaply the inoculant can be produced--no more inefficient hand

methods.... Of course the fastness of growth wouldnt affect the sale to

farmers--help it in fact. No doubt she'd had more than I originally

thought in that aspect, I conceded generously. We could let them apply

it themselves ... mailorder advertising ... cut costs that way.... Think

of clover and alfalfa--or werent they grasses? Anyway, imagine hay or

wheat as tall as Iowa corn and corn higher than a smalltown cityhall!

Fortune--there'd be a dozen fortunes in it.

I began perspiring. The deal was getting bigger and bigger. It wasnt

just a simple matter of cutting in on a good thing. All the angles,

which were multiplying at a tremendous rate, had to be covered before I

saw Miss Francis again; I darent miss any bets. I needed a staff of

agricultural experts--anyway someone who could cover the scientific

side. Whatever happened to my freshman chemistry? And a mob of lawyers;

you'd have to plug every loophole--tight. But here I was without a

financial resource--couldnt hire a ditchdigger, much less the highpriced

talent I needed--and someone else might get a brainstorm when he saw the

lawn and beat me to it. I visioned myself cheated of my million....

Yes ... a really fast worker--some unethical promoter willing to stoop

to devious methods--might pass at any moment and grasp the

possibilities, have Miss Francis signed up before I'd even got the deal

straight in my mind. How could he miss, seeing this lawn? Splendid,

magnificent, beautiful. No one would ever call this stuff

devilgrass--angelgrass would be more appropriate to the implications of

such a heavenly green. Millions in it--simply millions....

"Say--arent you the fellow put this stuff on?"

Halfadozen vacant faces gaped at me, the burdening pump, the caudal

hose. Curiosity, interest, imbecile amusement argued in their expression

with the respect due the worker of the transformation; it was the sort

of look connected with salesresistance of the most obstinate kind. They

distracted me from thinking things through.

"Miz Dinkman's sure looking for you. Says she's going to sue you."

Here was an unfortunate development, an angle to end all angles.

Unfavorable publicity, the abortifacient of new enterprises, would mean

you could hardly give the stuff away. My imagination raced through

columns of newsprint in which the Metamorphizer was made the butt of

reporters' humor. Mrs Dinkman's ire would have to be placated, bought

off. Perhaps I'd better discuss developments with Miss Francis right

away, afterall.

Whatever I decided, it was advisable for me to leave this vicinity. I

was in no financial position to soothe Mrs Dinkman and it was dubious,

in view of her attitude, whether it would be possible to sell any more

in the immediate neighborhood. Probably a new territory was the answer

to my problem; a few sales would give me both cash in hand and time to

think.

While I hesitated, Mrs Dinkman, belligerency dancing like a sparkling

aura about her, came out of her garage with a rusty, rattling lawnmower.

I'm no authority on gardentools, but this creaking, rickety machine was

clearly no match for the lusty growth. The audience felt so too, and

there was a stir of sporting interest as they settled down to watch the

contest.

Determination was implicit in the sharply unnatural lines of her corset

and the firm set of her glasses as she charged into the gently swaying

runners. The wheels turned rebelliously, the mower bit, its rusty blades

grated against the knife, something clanked forcibly and the machine

stopped. Mrs. Dinkman pushed, her back arched with effort--the mower

didnt budge. She pulled it back. It whirred gratefully; the clanking

stopped and she tried again. This time it chewed a handful of grass from

the edge, found it distasteful and quit once more.

"Anybody know how to make this damn thing work?" Mrs Dinkman asked

exasperatedly.

"Needs oil" was helpfully volunteered.

She retired into the garage and returned with a lopsided oilcan. "Oil

it," she commanded regally. The helpful one reluctantly pressed his

thumb against the wry bottom of the can, aiming the twisted spout at odd

parts of the mower. "I dunno," he commented.

"I don't either," said Mrs Dinkman. "You--Greener, Weener--whatever your

name is!"