Read Ebook: Be young again! by Leinster Murray Stevens Lawrence Sterne Illustrator

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Ebook has 163 lines and 14859 words, and 4 pages

"You need the Elixir yourself," says Jode, grunting amiable. "You are broke. If somebody will finance the makin' of an adequate supply for you, you will make enough for him, too. You see, I am saving you the trouble of makin' the pitch. And I say again, how much?"

The Prof's eyes gleam. He wets his lips. Jode says confidential. "I am a customer. I can fetch in another--a very rich man. If I finance the operation myself, will you split with me what I get outa him? Your split will be in five figures. Maybe more."

"I--ah--when I am a young man again," admits the Prof, "it would be a very good idea to have some capital with which to start life anew. Er--yes, I will agree to that."

Jode asks questions, fast, and peels off century-notes like he was dealing a hand for set-back. He is hooked; he is beaming. All during the rest of dinner he wheezes and snorts happy to himself.

After the Prof has gone away, old Jode says scornful that he is strictly a small-time operator, and he doubts if he ever took over a customer for as much as a grand in all his life. But he figures Prof is ripe for plenty more than this first installment, which is what Jode wants. 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...."

"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.

"It would prob'ly work," I repeat, firm. "That catalyst stuff is good reasonin'. I knew a fella got fired from a silverplatin' plant and he took a file and filed off some powdered bakelite into each one of the platin' baths to get even. The firm near went crazy. The bakelite don't dissolve or anything, but you can't plate when it's in the bath. It's a anticatalyst. Some of those impurities the Prof was talking about must keep the regular chemical actions from takin' place, so you get what he said."

Old Jode sits down and howls.

"That stuff about the million monkeys is true," I point out. "I read that myself in a science magazine. I got a hunch there's more to his idea than he figures. If my laboratory was set up I'd try it myself. Maybe I better had, anyways."

"Buck!" wheezes old Jode, "You'll be the death of me!"

He near strangles, laughin'. I get mad. "Okay," I say, "but I tell you right now you better let me do it if you sure-enough want that elixir. Icelandic spar ain't what he said. He's got good dope, but he's a phoney!"

Old Jode thinks that's so funny I go out and take a walk to cool off. But the more I think about it, the better the Prof's stuff looks. Next day I go to the public library and hunt up alchemy. I get a bunch of books out in the reading-room. Trismigestus. Bacon. Theophrastus. Paracelsus. Count Graby. I read them, fast, taking notes when necessary. I get fascinated; the stuff sounds plenty convincing. I get excited. It's as good as some science fiction. I fill my head up with the stuff, and a notebook with memos.

I go to a drug-store and buy some test-tubes. I get a alcohol-burner and some denatured; I go to a paint store and buy some more stuff. I have to hunt high and low before I can find a hobby-shop with geological specimens. I get some stuff there. Fluor-spar. The clerk sells it to me indifferent. Plenty of guys my age mess around with experiments; I get everything I need, except some egg-skin.

I go back to the hotel, lock the door and put the stuff together. I have not got pure chemicals. A hunk of native sulphur. I catch some soot from safety matches that I burn one after another under a metal ash-tray. I've got a hunk of sal-ammoniac--lump stuff, not what they sell at a drug-store. Nobody will sell me oil of vitriol, but I get some at a garage where they have it for storage batteries. I got some iron pyrites. I mix the stuff up careful. It makes an awful stink. I have to open the windows. I go through all the routine that a guy named Dr. Dee says would make a universal solvent. Nothing happens. Nothing at all.

I am pretty much disgusted. The Prof's stuff sounded good. If I'd read it in a science magazine I would've believed it and remembered it. But nothing happens. Next morning I am having breakfast when I remember about the skin of a egg. That is crazy. It ain't scientific; not modern scientific, anyhow. But I go upstairs with a egg-shell from breakfast. I get out that thin skin from inside and put it in the test-tube. Nothing happens.

I get disgusted all over again. I sit down with a science magazine, and I am reading it morbid, when I smell something funny. The test-tube is empty. There is a little white vapor around the bottom. There is a hole in the test-tube; there is a hole in the sink; there is a hole in the floor underneath. It stinks something awful. I don't know how far down the hole goes, but I know I got to get a laboratory and work this business out!

I tell old Jode about it. I show him the hole in the floor and the sink. He turns funny colors. "You mighta made poison gas, Buck!" he says. "You coulda killed yourself! It coulda been poison!"

"It wasn't whipping cream," I agree. "It's what those alchemists said they got. I got my doubts the Prof ever did this experiment, even if he said he did. You better let me fix up a temporary laboratory and make that elixir for you."

But Jode looks pained. "Buck," he says, "I have sounded out Mr. Vachti. I have explained that I have been softened up on this business. I have acted dumb so he thinks I have fallen for it. He is checking up; you got to stay out of this party!"

"But the Prof ain't going to make the real stuff!" I say, grim. "I'll bet--what kinda apparatus is he buyin'?"

Jode shows me a list. He is fat and white-haired an very impressive to look at, but when it comes to science he has to take my word for things. I say, scornful: "Phoney! I hunted up Hermes Trismigestus in the library yesterday and got the formula. That vacuum distillation apparatus ain't going to be used! It's just to dress up the lab."

"It's wrong, eh?" says Jode.

"It's crazy!" I says. "Just good apparatus wasted!"

"Fine!" says Jode, relieved. "I didn't think he believed it himself; if he wasn't a crook I'd be messed up. But he's still got me worried. How's he gonna pull that trick of makin' rats young again, Buck? Mr. Vachti wants to see that--him handling the rats. If the Prof is smart enough to put that over, Mr. Vachti is hooked!"

"Genius!" says Jode, beaming at me affectionate. "You take a load off my shoulders. Tomorrow Mr. 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?"

Well, I can handle that. 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. But right now I try something with immediate practical use. I go after the Elixir of Youth.

It is surprising how hard it is to get some things. Dragon's blood, which the formula calls for, ain't what you think and you don't buy it at a art store, either. And raw natron is not easy to get hold of. I am almost stumped by ashes of mandrake, though; there simply ain't any mandrake in the United States. But I hunt it up in the botany books, and I find a weed that's a close cousin, I spend two days off in the woods hunting it, and I find some and compare the leaves with those in the book.

Then I got to reduce it to ash, and I'm drifting around in the bay with a terrific stink and plenty of smoke coming from my apparatus in the sailboat. It don't occur to me what it looks like, but all of a sudden there's a booming noise, and a fast motor-yacht is streaking up to me, and it looms up and a couple tough-looking guys are looking me over. One of 'em says: "You on fire, kid. Want us to douse it for you?"

I say no thanks; I am cookin' lunch and it got scorched; they look me over curious and the motor-yacht goes on its way. I read the name on its stern and it's Mr. Vachti's yacht. Even the sailors on his yacht look like those guys he is keeping himself surrounded by--people who remind him of the happy past when he was a bootlegger baron and rode around in a bullet-proof car. They are tough-looking birds, those babies!

I don't see much of old Jode. He gets up in the morning and groans, has black coffee with brandy in it; presently he totters to the bathroom, takes a long shower and dresses up sporty and goes out. But he reports to me from time to time; one day he tells me the rat business worked out perfect, and the Prof has put the bite on him for another five Cs. Then he says the Prof's equipment has arrived and is being set up. Him and Mr. Vachti go and look it over. And I know that Jode sweats some, then, but Mr. Vachti has merely told him firm that he is a sucker being swindled because Mr. Vachti's lawyer has told him so. But nobody is trying to swindle Mr. Vachti yet, so there is nothing he can do about it.

Then the Prof begins his chemical work, putting together dragon's blood and mandrake ash and natron and egg-white. Old Jode goes and watches. He says the Prof puts on a good show, says Mr. Vachti is watching, and fair drooling with wanting to be in on what is a kind of party that just possible might be on the level. But he wants still more to be in on it if it's a swindle. Because just like Jode collects fond memories of having put over artistic tricks, Mr. Vachti collects records of people sent to jail for all the known swindle games. He has no record of a man sent to jail for selling the elixir of life, and he wants one to complete his collection. So ultimate he broaches the matter to Jode. If the Prof is on the level, he says, he knows of a new career surpassin' even that of bootleg baron which he could embark on if he was young again. And if it's a crooked deal, it will sort of climax his career, sending somebody to jail for trying to sell him eternal youth.

Old Jode is fair trembling with the near realization of his ambition, when he tells me this. The deal is made. Mr. Vachti will put up fifty grand in cash for a equal dose of the elixir with the Prof and Jode. If it works, the cash is his contribution. If it don't work, he gets it back. And Jode is shaky but resolute.

"Now listen," he says, earnest. "I'm checkin' a coupla bags at the airport, and they are important. I'm putting the car in a garage where you or me can get it out fast, but nobody else knows about it. If we got to beat it, I'm goin' to be all set. But--"

I am all set to pull the last business of makin' the elixir, and I got to be undisturbed. I got to do it private. I have gone to the dogpound and looked over the dogs, and there's an old pooch there that somebody sent to have put in the gas-chamber; he is pretty decrepit, but he looks at me wistful when I speak to him. He's just old. So I have bailed him out and he's tied up in the boat now.

I'm going to tell Jode I'll be back late that night. 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 am absolute in the clear."

"Yeah?" I say.

I have got to keep a alembic--that's a funny-shaped thing which is really a very simple still that you can use as a tower-still if you want to--I have to keep this alembic boiling for twelve hours continous. 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. Then we are supposed to remain there, unobserved, until we are young men again; then we take leave of each other and the Prof goes off to start his life anew with our contributions."

I look at him blank.

"Obviously," says Jode, in a tone suggesting that he feels kind of ashamed for the Prof, "the doses that he gives us will be knockout drops. When we wake up, the Prof will have departed with a large sum."

"Oh," 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. If it ain't safe--beat it! And--will you shake hands?"

I think that actual the old fella wants to hug me, but he don't. There are tears in his eyes and his wattles are all red with emotion. But we just shake hands; he isn't a bad guy, in his way. I am pretty fond of old Jode.

But he's cleared the way for what I have to do. I go down to the sailboat, and he waddles along with me; I have some grub ready, but my apparatus is under the deck forward, in the locker. Old Jode is surprised when he sees that dog wag his tail feeble at me. I explain that I just kinda picked him up.

"He will be company for you tonight, Buck," says Jode, wistful. "You have blankets? Take care of yourself, Buck!"

"I'll do it," I says. "Be seein' you." And I haul up the sail and cast off.

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