High Man

Excerpt

Please forgive the delay in replying to your letters and cable. The truth is that I was quite unable to write, anxious as I was to do so. It's a rather long story, but I would like to explain just how this came to be and so prove how unfounded your suspicions were.

You see, shortly after I arrived here, I ran into a Professor Phelps-Smythe Burdinghaugh, lately of England. Professor Burdinghaugh has been forced to resign from several universities in England because of the rather free manner in which he conducted his experiments. He admitted that no less than 16 physics laboratories have been demolished through his own miscalculations.

At any rate, finding the atmosphere in our country somewhat cool toward his continued researches, he came to New York, which, as you know, is inhabited wholly by wealthy eccentrics, tourists and boors. Such an environment was eminently suited to the Professor's needs and he settled here to work on an anti-gravity belt, his lifelong project.

You may wonder, reasonably enough, what Professor Burdinghaugh has to do with the delay in writing to you, but I assure you that, were it not for him, you would have heard from me much sooner. Much sooner indeed.

It all began with a Scotch-and-water. The Professor and I were each having one and inevitably we struck up a conversation. We chatted on a great number of topics and I remember that he was quite impressed when I told him you were indeed the Chemicals Anne Harrodsbury. Not long after this, the old boy (he is fiftyish and rather heavy) invited me in the flush of good comradeship (and good Scotch) to take part in his latest experiment with his anti-gravity unit. Feeling rather light-headed, I heartily acclaimed his suggestion and we repaired to his laboratory.

"My boy," he said to me later, as he strapped a bulky belt around my waist. "My boy, you are about to witness a milestone in history. Most assuredly, a milestone."

I nodded, basking in the old boy's magnificent confidence.

"We are about to enter a new era," he continued. "The Era of Space!"

His voice dropped to a low, comradely whisper. "And I have chosen you, my boy, to assist me in forging this trail to new suns, new worlds, new civilizations! The whole Galaxy lies before us!"

I could see only Professor Burdinghaugh's massive girth before me, but I assumed he could see things much more clearly than I.

The Professor filled our glasses from the bottle I had bought, then put his face close to mine. "Do you know why no one has ever invented an anti-gravity belt?" he confided. "I'll tell you—it takes research, and research takes money. And money is very hard to get. Especially," he added, gazing somberly at his highball, "in my field of research."

He shrugged, then busied himself with some adjustments on the belt he had wrapped around me. "There," he said finally, stepping back, "it's ready." We went outside to the garden behind his laboratory.

"All my life," he mused, "I've wanted to be the first to defy gravity, but—" here a suspicious wetness glistened in his eyes—"my fondness for good food and good drink has paid its price....