“Oh,” I said. I repeated it slowly, or started to. “There—isn’t -any—little—man—who—wasn’t—” I gave up. “I think I begin to see,” I said. “What you mean is that there wasn’t any little man who isn’t here. But then, who’s Yehudi?”
“There isn’t any Yehudi, Hank. But the name, the idea, fitted so well that I called it that for short.”
“And what do you call it for long?”
“The automatic autosuggestive subvibratory superaccelerator.” I drank the rest of my drink.
“Lovely,” I said. “I like the Yehudi principle better, though. But there’s just one thing. Who brought us that drink-stuff? The gin and the soda and the so forth?”
“I did. And you mixed our second-last, as well as our last drink. Now do you understand?”
“In a word,” I said, “not exactly.”
Charlie sighed. “A field is set up between the temple-plates which accelerates several thousand times, the molecular vibration and thereby the speed of organic matter—the brain, and thereby the body. The command given just before the switch is thrown acts as an autosuggestion and you carry out the order you’ve just given yourself. But so rapidly that no one can see you move; just a momentary blur as you move off and come back in practically the same instant. Is that clear?”
“Sure,” I told him. “Except for one thing. Who’s Yehudi?”
I went to the table and started mixing two more drinks. Seven-eighths gin.
Charlie said patiently, “The action is so rapid that it does not impress itself upon your memory. For some reason the memory is not affected by the acceleration. The effect—both to the user and to the observer—is of the spontaneous obedience of a command by … well, by the little man who wasn’t there.”
“Yehudi?”
“Why not?”
“Why not why not?” I asked. “Here, have another drink. It’s a bit weak, but so am I. So you got this gin, huh? Where?”
“Probably the nearest tavern. I don’t remember.”
“Pay for it?”
He pulled out his wallet and opened it. “I think there’s a fin missing. I probably left it in the register. My subconscious must be honest.”
“But what good is it?” I demanded. “I don’t mean your subconscious, Charlie, I mean the Yehudi principle. You could have just as easily bought that gin on the way here. I could just as easily have mixed a drink and known I was doing it. And if you’re sure it can’t go bring us Lili St. Cyr and Esther Williams—”
“It can’t. Look, it can’t do anything that you yourself can’t do. It isn’t an it. It’s you. Get that through your head, Hank, and you’ll understand.”
“But what good is it?”
He sighed again. “The real purpose of it is not to run errands for gin and mix drinks. That was just a demonstration. The real purpose—”
“Wait,” I said. “Speaking of drinks, wait. It’s a long time since I had one.”
I made the table, tacking only twice, and this time I didn’t bother with the soda. I put a little lemon and an ice cube in each glass of gin.
Charlie tasted his and made a wry face.
I tasted mine. “Sour,” I said. “I should have left out the lemon. And we better drink them quick before the ice cubes start to melt or they’ll be weak.”
“The real purpose,” said Charlie, “is—”
“Wait,” I said. “You could be wrong, you know. About the limitations. I’m going to put that headband on and tell Yehudi to bring us Lill and—”
“Don’t be a sap, Hank. I made the thing. I know how it works. You can’t get Lill St. Cyr or Esther Williams or Brooklyn Bridge.”
“You’re positive?”
“Of course.”
What a sap I was. I believed him. I mixed two more drinks, using gin and two glasses this time, and then I sat down on the edge of the bed, which was swaying gently from side to side.
“All right,” I said. “I can take it now. What is the real purpose of it?”
Charlie Swann blinked several times and seemed to be having trouble bringing his eyes into focus on me. He asked, “The real purpose of what?”
I enunciated slowly and carefully. “Of the automatonic autosuggestive subvibratory superaccelerator. Yehudi, to me.”
“Oh, that,” said Charlie.
“That,” I said. “What is its real purpose?”
“It’s like this. Suppose you got something to do that you’ve got to do in a hurry. Or something that you’ve got to do, and don’t want to do. You could—”
“Like writing a story?” I asked.
“Like writing a story,” he said, “or painting a house, or washing a mess of dishes, or shoveling the sidewalk, or… or doing anything else you’ve got to do but don’t want to do. Look, you put it on and tell yourself—”
“Yehudi,” I said.
“Tell Yehudi to do it, and it’s done. Sure, you do it, but you don’t know that you do, so it doesn’t hurt. And it gets done quicker.”
“You blur,” I said.
He held up his glass and looked through it at the electric light. It was empty. The glass, not the electric light. He said, “You blur.”
“Who?”
He didn’t answer. He seemed to be swinging, chair and all, in an arc about a yard long. It made me dizzy to look at him, so I closed my eyes, but that was worse so I opened them again.
I said, “A story?”
“Sure.”
“I got to write a story,” I said, “but why should I? I mean, why not let Yehudi do it?”
I went over and put on the headband. No extraneous remarks this time, I told myself. Stick to the point.
“Write a story,” I said.
I nodded. Nothing happened.
But then I remembered that, as far as I was supposed to know, nothing was supposed to happen. I walked over to the typewriter desk and looked.
There was a white sheet and a yellow sheet in the typewriter, with a carbon between them. The page was about half filled with typing and then down at the bottom were two words by themselves. I couldn’t read them. I took my glasses off and still I couldn’t, so I put them back on and put my face down within inches of the typewriter and concentrated. The words were “The End.”
I looked over alongside the typewriter and there was a neat, but small pile of typed sheets, alternate white and yellow.
It was wonderful. I’d written a story. If my subconscious mind had anything on the ball, it might be the best story I’d ever written.
Too bad I wasn’t quite in shape to read it. I’d have to see an optometrist about new glasses. Or something.
“Charlie,” I said, “I wrote a story.”
“When?”
“Just now.”
“I didn’t see you.”
“I blurred,” I said. “But you weren’t looking.”
I was back sitting on the bed. I don’t remember getting there.
“Charlie,” I said, “it’s wonderful.”
“What’s wonderful?”
“Everything. Life. Birdies in the trees. Pretzels. A story in less than a second! One second a week I have to work from now on. No more school, no more books, no more teacher’s sassy looks! Charlie, it’s wonderful!”
He seemed to wake up. He said, “Hank, you’re just beginning to see the possibilities. They’re almost endless, for any profession. Almost anything. ”
“Except,” I said sadly, “Lili St. Cyr and Esther Williams.”
“You’ve got a one-track mind.”
“Two-track,” I said. “I’d settle for either. Charlie, are you positive— ”
Wearily, “Yes.” Or that was what he meant to say; it came out “Mesh.”
“Charlie,” I said. “You’ve been drinking. Care if I try? ”
“Shoot yourself.”
“Huh? Oh, you mean suit yourself. O.K., then I’ll—”