Someone thought of a breeze and you could hear the whisper of it, moving in the trees, ruffling the pond.
Lodge brought his character into mind and walked him on the stage, imagining his gangling walk, the grass stem stuck in his mouth, the curl of unbarbered hair above his collar.
Someone had to start it off. Someone—The Rustic Slicker turned and hustled back off stage. He hustled back again, carrying a great hamper.
«Forgot m’ basket,» he said, with rural sheepishness.
Someone tittered in the darkened room.
Thank God for that titter!
It is going all right.
Come on, the rest of you!
The Out-At-Elbows Philosopher strode on stage.
He was a charming fellow, with no good intent at all—a cadger, a bum, a full-fledged fourflusher behind the façade of his flowered waistcoat, the senatorial bearing, the long, white, curling locks.
«My friend,» he said. «My friend.»
«Y’ ain’t m’ friend,» the Rustic Slicker told him, «till y’ pay me back m’ 300 bucks.»
Come on, the rest of you!
The Beautiful Bitch showed up with the Proper Young Man, who any moment now was about to get dreadfully disillusioned.
The Rustic Slicker had squatted on the grass and opened his hamper. He began to take out stuff—a ham, a turkey, a cheese, a vacuum jug, a bowl of Jello, a tin of kippered herring.
The Beautiful Bitch made exaggerated eyes at him and wiggled her hips.
The Rustic Slicker blushed, ducking his head.
Kent yelled from the audience: «Go ahead and ruin him!»
Everyone laughed.
It was going to be all right. It would be all right.
Get the audience and the players kidding back and forth and it was bound to be all right.
«Ah think that’s a good idee, honey,» said the Beautiful Bitch. «Ah do believe Ah will.»
She advanced upon the Slicker.
The Slicker, with his head still ducked, kept on taking things out of the hamper—more by far than could have been held in any ten such hampers.
He took out rings of bologna, stacks of wieners, mounds of marshmallows, a roast goose—and a diamond necklace.
The Beautiful Bitch pounced on the necklace, shrieking with delight.
The Out-At-Elbows Philosopher had jerked a leg off the turkey and was eating it, waving it between bites to emphasize the flowery oration he had launched upon.
«My friends»—he orated between bites—«my friends, in this vernal season it is right and proper, I said right and proper, sir, that a group of friends should foregather to commune with nature in her gayest aspects, finding retreat such as this even in the heart of a heartless city…»
He would go on like that for hours unless something intervened to stop him. The situation being as it was, something was almost bound to stop him.
Someone had put a sportive, if miniature, whale into the pond, and the whale, acting much more like a porpoise than a whale, was leaping about in graceful curves and scaring the hell out of the flock of ducks which resided on the pond.
The Alien Monster sneaked in and hid behind a tree. You could see with half an eye that he was bent upon no good.
«Watch out!» yelled someone in the audience, but the actors paid no attention to the warning. There were times when they could be incredibly stupid.
The Defenseless Orphan came onstage on the arm of the Mustached Villain (and there was no good intent in that situation, either) with the Extra-Terrestrial Ally trailing along behind them.
«Where is the Sweet Young Thing?» asked the Mustached Villain. «She’s the only one who’s missing.»
«She’ll be along,» said the Rustic Slicker. «I saw her at the corner saloon building up a load…»
The Philosopher stopped his oration in midsentence, halted the turkey drumstick in midair. His silver mane did its best to bristle and he whirled upon the Rustic Slicker.
«You are a cad, sir,» he said. «To say a thing like that, a most contemptible cad!»
«I don’t care,» said the Slicker. «No matter what y’ say, that’s what she was doing.»
«You lay off him,» shrilled the Beautiful Bitch, fondling the diamond necklace. «He’s mah frien’ and you can’t call him a cad.»
«Now, B.B.,» protested the Proper Young Man, «you keep out of this.»
She spun on him. «You shut yoah mouth,» she said. «You mealy hypocrite. Don’t you tell me what to do. Too nice to call me by mah rightful name, but using just initials. You prissy-panted high-binder, don’t you speak to me.»
The Philosopher stepped ponderously forward, stooped down and swung his arm. The half-eaten drumstick took the Slicker squarely across the chops.
The Slicker rose slowly to his feet, one hand grasping the roast goose.
«So y’ want to play,» he said.
He hurled the goose at the Philosopher.
It struck squarely on the flowered waistcoat.
It was greasy and it splashed.
Oh, Lord, thought Lodge.
Now the fat’s in the fire for sure!
Why did the Philosopher act the way he did? Why couldn’t they have left it a simple, friendly picnic, just this once? Why did the person whose character the Philosopher was make him swing that drumstick?
And why had he, Bayard Lodge, made the Slicker throw the goose?
He went cold all over at the question, and when the answer came he felt a hand reach into his belly and start twisting at his guts.
For the answer was: He hadn’t!
He hadn’t made the Slicker throw the goose. He’d felt a flare of anger and a hard, cold hatred, but he had not willed his character to retaliatory action.
He kept watching the screen, seeing what was going on, but with only half his mind, while the other half quarreled with itself and sought an explanation.
It was the machine that was to blame—it was the machine that had had the Slicker throw the goose, for the machine would know, almost as well as a human knew, the reaction that would follow a blow upon the face. The machine had acted automatically, without waiting for the human thought.
Sure, perhaps, of what the human thought would be.
It’s logical, said the arguing part of his mind—it’s logical that the machine would know, and logical once again that being sure of knowing, it would react automatically.
The Philosopher had stepped cautiously backward after he had struck the blow, standing at attention, presenting arms, after a manner of speaking, with the mangy drumstick.
The Beautiful Bitch clapped her hands and cried, «Now you-all got to fight a duel!»
«Precisely, miss,» said the Philosopher, still stiffly at attention. «Why else do you think I struck him.»
The goose grease dripped slowly off his ornate vest, but you never would have guessed for so much as an instant but he was faultlessly turned out.
«But it should have been a glove,» protested the Proper Young Man.
«I didn’t have a glove, sir,» said the Philosopher, speaking a truth that was self-evident.
«It’s frightfully improper,» persisted the Proper Young Man.
The Mustached Villain flipped back his coattails and, reaching into his back pockets, brought out two pistols.
«I always carry them,» he said with a frightful leer, «for occasions such as this.»
We have to break it up, thought Lodge. We have to stop it. We can’t let it go on!
He made the Rustic Slicker say, «Now lookit here, now. I don’t want to fool around with firearms. Someone might get hurt.»
«You have to fight,» said the leering Villain, holding both pistols in one hand and twirling his mustaches with the other.
«He has the choice of weapons,» observed the Proper Young Man. «As the challenged party…»
The Beautiful Bitch stopped clapping her hands.
«You keep out of this,» she screamed. «You sissy—you just don’t want to see them fight.»