Murray Leinster

“ There is a silence that you coulda cut in chunks. Mr. Vachti laughs again. "I have a hobby," he says, "of putting people in jail when they try to swindle me. You two tried it. I admit," he says, vexed, "that you fixed it so I can't put you in jail for this actual job. Putting you in jail won't be the perfect example I would wish for my files. But you go to jail or into a barrel of concrete!"
"How can you send us to jail?" demands Jode, rather shrill.
"I count on your assistance," says Mr. Vachti, venomous. "My men have been with me for a long time. ”

“ Vachti just don't pay any attention. Jode don't have much to say to the Prof. The Prof just sits slumped in a chair and looks miserable.
Noon comes, and I go back to the boat, feed the pooch and myself. I hang around near the house all afternoon. When I go back for something else to eat around supper-time the pooch near eats me up, he is that glad to see me. I take a good look at him. He isn't an old dog any more; he is a kind of gangling just-grown puppy, falling all over himself and just busting out with energy. That elixir has worked on him all right. ”

“ When he realizes it, Jode cries. He has put up a bold front in front of Mr. Vachti and the Prof, but he has been scared all the way down in his innards. Now he figures he's gonna be caught and either dumped overboard in concrete or else put away for all his declining years, and the grub in penitentiaries is terrible. Also—I got to give him credit for it—he is scared for me. I am on the island; I can't get off neither. And it is anybody's guess what Mr. Vachti will think is appropriate for me. A reform school is the least unpleasing idea that turns up. But Jode looks for worse than that. ”

“ I hear something whining close by, and sit up; there is that pooch. He looks a lot spryer than he has been, but he is hungry. When I feed him, he eats until his belly bulges out, and then lays down and goes to sleep. I take another swim; I ain't in any hurry. I have till sundown to get to Esperance to meet Jode. I am divin' when I hear a boomin' sound underwater, so I come up and there is Mr. Vachti's yacht streakin' for the island again. I get on shore and watch from behind the trees; it goes around the end of the island again. About a hour later it goes back to Las Lagunas. ”

“ Up in our rooms, he is still grinning with all his chins and wattles.
"A lovely business, eh, Buck? Convincin', too! Can't you picture how Vachti will fall for this Elixir of Youth proposition? He'll see himself young, surrounded by pretty girls...."
"Can't you picture how Vachti will fall for this Elixir of Youth proposition? He'll see himself young, surrounded by pretty girls...."
"I know of a coupla science-fiction writers coulda done it better," I say, detached. "But it's good enough. It would take a good man to find a hole in that theory. In fact, it would prob'ly work."
"Huh?" says Jode. ”

“ We stay still. Presently I see more guys, also with guns. They are hard-looking fellows. Sailors from the yacht; They hunt systematic.
About the middle of the morning, Jode realizes what is happening. The scene is terrific. There is practically hysterics. I figure that it must be that I don't have real mandrake ash but something else, and it is pretty awful. In fact, Jode is so upset that once I figure I better take my chances with Mr. Vachti. But I don't; after all, no matter how deplorable it is, Jode is still better off than in a barrel of concrete. I argue that way. ”

“ I says.
"It is hopeless crude," says Jode. "My intention, Buck, is simply to switch glasses. True artistry is always simple. But—well—if anything should go wrong, on account of Mr. Vachti, I want you to have this." He hands me a roll that would choke a horse. "And—I hope you will think of me sometimes, Buck. I want you to take off in your sailboat now. Sail down the coast to Esperance. It is only twenty-five miles. I will meet you there at sundown tomorrow. If I have beat it, I will be there; if anything has gone wrong, do not try to contact me until you are completely sure it is safe. ”

“ Vachti—and for a bloodthirsty old guy now gloomily hangin' on around seventy, it is the one bait that he would like to believe in if he could.
"Remarkable!" wheezes Jode. "You have experimental evidence, of course?"
"I beggared myself procurin' the materials," says the Prof, apologetic. "Modern chemicals will not work. One must use the impure, the sometimes ridiculous chemicals of the ancients. It is possible that the very impurities are the essential ingredients. But at the cost of all my savings, I made ten cubic centimetres of yellow fluid. ”

“ That old pooch lays down and sighs and looks at me grateful, and I get my stuff lined up.
I build a furnace for my alembic outa rocks on shore; I light the torch, and put together the stuff that Hermes Trismigestus says will make the elixir. There is natron and orpiment and dragon's blood and egg-white, and ashes of mandrake—anyhow, next-door to mandrake—and the eye of a frog. I got that from a fancy restaurant where they serve frogs'-legs and boast the frogs are shipped to them alive. There are other ingredients that don't make sense by modern science. ”

“ He is a pretty good guy. I know for a fact that he never goes to bed without lookin' in to see that I am all right. Which in a way is insultin' when a guy is sixteen, but in another way ain't so bad. My old man never done nothing like that. I feel kinda fond of old Jode. But I don't want him to know I'm making the elixir until it's all done.
He says, unhappy: "Buck, my boy, anything may happen. According to the Prof's figures, the elixir is gonna be finished today. It is a really beautiful setup. If and when the elixir turns out to be phoney, he is the fall guy ”

“ I got a sailboat, ain't I? I fix up a locker with a padlock, and I start accumulatin' materials, duckin' into the library occasional to get more dope from translations of Hermes Trismigestus and Count Graby and Nicolas Flamel and so on. I get to be a expert on alchemy, which some ways is almost as interestin' as science fiction, only not so likely. It looks to me that with a good thick concrete screen and remote-control handling of materials to take care of radiation, it might be a good idea to see if the philosopher's stone formula does give nuclear fission. ”

“ In prosperous surroundings he will be excited and probably spill his hand. You will pass on the plausibility of his scientific discovery. It is one of the things I pay you for."
Well—I play up. I am passing for Jode's nephew in the very swank surroundings of Las Lagunas, where Jode's and my hotel-suite costs more money per day than I ever hoped to make a week. I prefer hanging around in my sailboat, reading science fiction and planning my laboratory, but I get combed up and put on a snazzy suit Jode has bought me; we meet this Prof and Jode waddles grand into the hotel dining-room. ”

“ The light goes out. He comes to open up the window for fresh air, and I whisper to him.
The breath goes outa him until I think he's gonna strangle. I say quick that I got my boat tied up and waiting for him. And old Jode is scared, all right. He eels outa that window waiting only to grab his pants. And we beat it for the boat, only I remember to make him go quiet. On the way I say to him, severe: "You'd ought to have let me make that elixir like I said. Then you wouldn't'a been in this trouble. I told you the Prof would mess it up. He had a good scientific theory, but he is a phoney!" ”

“ I can't do it in the hotel; I have got to tie up my boat somewheres to do it. I got a place all picked out on a island off Las Lagunas where nobody is going to notice me. There is a house on the island, but it is always closed up. I have a gasoline torch, and everything is set. But I am going to be back late, and Jode might worry.
"I even figure I know what the Professor intends," says Jode. "It is crude; the Prof is not an artist; even at that. Mr. Vachti and I take our money to his house. The Prof and Mr. Vachti and I take our doses of the elixir together. ”

“ Vachti, he will buy me a eighteen-foot sailboat that I can have personal, and I can loaf around in it while business goes on.
I make the deal. The price of my laboratory is climbing as I think of more things I would like to have. I figure if Jode gets rich enough, maybe I can nick him for a small-sized cyclotron and have some fun. Meanwhile a sailboat won't be bad.
I get it. I do have fun. I have never heard of Hermes Trismigestus ”

“ Vachti and me we look over the rats and I bet you got the trick exact. The Prof is mighty cagey with his two centimetres of stuff."
"Better let me make it for you real," I say, warning.
"You stay outa this!" grunts Jode, scared again when he thinks of that hole in the sink and the floor. "And don't go mixing up any more poisons, hear me?"
He is honest worried. He ain't a bad guy; he's a crook, of course, but in his way he's all right. ”

“ Me and a guy named Hermes Trismigestus take care of the situation when Jode gets in a very tight place. This guy Trismigestus is anyways a thousand years old, if he's alive anywhere, and I am sixteen, but we co-operate. The tight place is caused by Prof Henry Barr, who urgent regrets the matter later on, and by Mr. Vachti, who is an elderly bootlegger baron in the dear dead days; he still has bodyguards hanging around him bloodthirsty. If you think an old guy like Mr. ”

“ So I—ah—I was forced to experiment for the proper dosage. One cubic centimetre of the yellow fluid—the elixir—it developed, would restore a twenty-pound animal to early maturity. Seven to ten centimetres would be required for an adult human being. But I had to expend eight cubic centimetres to verify this fact in my experiments on small animals. I have only two centimetres left. But I do have a number of very elderly rats at my dwelling. I will let you choose any one of them; I will administer the elixir, and allow you to take the animal away and care for it. ”

“ Outside of havin' the cops of sixteen or eighteen states passionate interested in his whereabouts, he doesn't have no worries, and lookin' like a million dollars is his business. But I don't know that then; he talks to me cordial, and we get on to science, a subject in which he is interested but don't know beans about. ”

“ It will seem like old times come back again, for them, to put you two into separate barrels of concrete and dump you overboard, even if it is the Pacific Ocean instead of the Chicago River they are dumping you in. ”