Part 3

I can see Jode's face. He looks at Mr. Vachti incredulous. His expression is filled with a fine disgust, like somebody would feel for somebody who has cheated in a friendly game of pinochle for beers. Jode's ideals are outraged. To him, tryin' to swindle Mr. Vachti has been a pure matter of professional pride. If Mr. Vachti plays it like it lies, old Jode wins. Mr. Vachti is outsmarted complete, on the artistic level. But instead of conceding graceful that Jode is a master artist, Mr. Vachti plays it dirty.

"That," says old Jode in bitter contempt, "is the lowest trick I have ever seen any man sink to! It is not playing fair! It is welching on a bet! It is--"

"It is my bed-time," says Mr. Vachti, in a voice several degrees harder than granite. "I am going to bed. You two--swindlers--can confer and decide whether you go to jail or to the bottom of the Pacific!"

And he means it. Neither the Prof nor Jode nor me has any doubt that he means it. He tries to play a swindle through straight, and he can't touch either the Prof nor Jode, legal, so he plays dirty to get even. I lose the respect I used to have for bootleg barons from what I heard before I got interested in science. Old Jode puffs and grunts in the room Mr. Vachti has left. "Well, Prof," he says disdainful, "What are you going to do?"

The Prof speaks for the first time that I hear. His voice is a shaky, wabbly, despairing moan. "I--ah--there are a coupla cases of forgery I could help the cops to solve," he says feeble; "and once I got out a back window when some post-office inspectors come to the front door. That was usin' the mails to defraud. And--and there are a couple of obtainin' money under false pretenses raps I could take," he says, and sobs, "If Mr. Vachti will be satisfied with them...."

Old Jode squares his shoulders and throws out his stomach. "I," he wheezes scornful, "I sold a gold brick to the United States Mint at Denver! That will get me respect in any court," he says, "and I shall go upon the witness stand and expose the despicable, the contemptible conduct of Mr. Vachti in this instance! And no artist," says Jode, proud, "will have any further use for him! He will be disgraced in the eyes of any worthwhile citizen!"

And Jode waddles splendid from the room, leaving the Prof dissolved in tears behind him.

* * * * *

Well.... It ain't so tough a job. This island all belongs to Mr. Vachti. There ain't any possible hope of escapin' from it unless the yacht comes to take you back to shore. So there ain't even locks on the windows of the room Jode sleeps in. What good would they do? I find out his room by just watchin' shadows on the window-curtain. 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!"

"You're quite right, Buck," pants Jode. "But let's go faster!"

"It was good, sound, scientific reasoning," I tell him, "only because I ain't but sixteen you hadda decide that I couldn't make that elixir as good as the Prof. All he's got that I ain't is long gray whiskers."

"Yes--yes," Jode gasps. "You are a genius, Buck! How much farther?"

Then we reach the place where I can see the water again. The pooch comes bouncin' joyful to me and puts his paws all over me and licks me enthusiastic. He has got loose from where I tied him. I am peeved, but it is lucky he doesn't trail me to the house. I tell him to come on and keep goin' for where my boat is.

Only it ain't there. I have tied the pooch to the moorin'-line; bein' a young dog with nothing in particular on his mind, he has chewed reflective on the rope like he woulda chewed on anything else. He has chewed it in two. The boat has drifted off. I see it, a good mile and a half away, bobbing prettily in the streak of light the moon makes on the water. I can't swim that far. Jode and me and the pooch are marooned on Mr. Vachti's private island, and come morning that island is going to be intensive searched.

5

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 believe the old son-of-a-gun is honest fond of me!

But at that it takes plenty of argument to make him take the only possible reasonable course. I suspect he thinks he will die, and that gives him his only argument back. He makes me promise that if he does die I will carry out the plan I had told him for the two of us. I promise, impatient, and give him part of a bottle of pop that was left on shore, with some clear yellow liquid mixed with it. He gulps it down, gagging, while I heave overboard my empty bottles and hasty pack up the hot dogs I got left. I make a muzzle for the pooch so he can't bark, and I use the line he's chewed off for a leash. We go hunting for a good hideout.

We find one; I cover Jode up with leaves and he's moderate comfortable. He talks kinda feverish and panicky about what a shame for a fine young lad like me to be in such a fix as this. But he's run a long ways gettin' to where the boat should be, and he's walked plenty afterward. He ain't used to it. He goes to sleep, all worn out; I doze off myself.

Come morning, Jode is starving. I take a good look at him, and I feel sort of funny. Things ain't working out the way I expect, but I don't say anything. I pass over hot dogs, and Jode wolfs 'em. Nothing else happens for a while. Then the yacht comes past the place where we're hiding, and later I see a coupla guys with guns roaming around. I cover up the pooch's nose with my hand; I don't want no whining. I have looked the pooch over more careful and I am what you might call appalled. But those guys hunting for signs of Jode ain't fooling; they carry their guns very handy. 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 don't know that Jode agrees--I doubt it very much, actually--but there ain't any choice now. It's happened.

Come sundown, we fix some emergency clothes out of a blanket because the pajamas Jode is wearing belong to Mr. Vachti and would be recognized. The two of us and the pooch go barging over to Mr. Vachti's house.

It is just about twilight when we get there. The yacht has been back to the mainland again and has brought out some dogs to track Jode down by smell. My pooch goes over amiable to make friends. There is a clamorous welcome from the other dogs. Very clamorous. Jode steams. Then I explain to a guy that we two was out sailing; we landed, and somebody stole our boat and can they send word so our folks can come for us. It sounds like very respectable family stuff.

There is a strange, profane silence. Nobody suspects it is Jode with me, of course. Mr. Vachti looks us over, suppressing all the cusswords ever known to man. He says to Jode, "Do you usual wear a blanket?" Jode says indignant, "I was sunbathing." Mr. Vachti says bitter, "I can prob'ly find some sailor clothes. I will send you back to the mainland."

He would like to strangle both of us. He figures that the Jode he is after stole the boat and beat it to the mainland. He can't do anything to us because, he figures again, Jode will be working out a list including kidnapping, coercion, threats, and other illegal acts, and a police launch may arrive at any moment. He can't even dump the Prof overboard because of his belief that Jode is on shore preparing a lawsuit. Actual, Jode is right there beside me, boiling mad and wanting enthusiastic to murder me, only not daring to show it.

* * * * *

It is a beautiful mess. Mr. Vachti has not got a scientific mind, so he can't make even a wild guess at what has happened. He don't believe in the elixir anyhow, and of course he wouldn't know that I had set out to make it. So never in a million years will he hit on the facts.

Jode goes inside the house and puts on the sailor pants and a sweater, and leaves the blanket as a memento. They put us on the yacht and take us back to the mainland, Jode holding aloof because of the likelihood of committing mayhem if I come in arm's reach. I go look at the yacht's engines. I observe that the Prof is on board, white as a sheet and trembling. He does not really believe he is reprieved. But he is.

We get to the dock and go ashore. Jode ain't even polite enough to say "Thanks" for our ride. We march away from the dock. A dog comes up, looking cordial; our pooch hasty gets on friendly terms and the two of them disappear up a side street. I don't care. I have Jode wait for me in a dark place, and I get some of my clothes outa the hotel; then I get the car, and we go get the suitcase outa the airport terminal. We salvage the baggage-check outa Jode's pants-pocket, and beat it the hell away from there.

Jode's mad is one of those steaming ones which one word let out will result in an explosion. There is hardly a word exchanged until we get to the next town and I have pulled up at its swankiest hotel. Then I get out of the car and I say: "Well, so-long, Jode!"

"No, you don't!" pants Jode, grabbing me. "We got to settle this! You got to do something about it! You come along!"

We register, getting rooms next to each other. Jode comes in my room, boiling, and sits down grim. The seat ain't comfortable. Then I blink. Jode is removing large, thick packages of banknotes--folding money--from the hip pockets of the sailor pants. They go on the table. They are impressive.

"Where'd that come from?" I ask, trying to postpone things.

"Mr. Vachti," says Jode, grim, "was all set to pay fifty grand just to see proof that the elixir of youth worked. He told the Prof that. He taunted him with it. He waved the cash in front of his face and repeated, sneering, that he was ready to pay it just to see proof. Well--I'm proof, of a sort. He saw me. So when I went in the house to put on these clothes I stopped by where he'd locked it up. I'm entitled to it. But--you Buck! How did this happen to me?"

* * * * *

I feel very much embarrassed but I have got it figured out more or less. I say, uncomfortable: "Well-l-l, Jode," I says, "I guess it was because there ain't any real mandrake in America. Ashes of mandrake was called for, and I couldn't get any, so I hunted up a weed that is right much like mandrake. May-apple is what they call it. I used that. It's a close cousin, but it musta lacked one of those catalysts or anticatalysts real mandrake woulda had--"

Jode grabs me and shakes hard. "What happened! And how is it gonna be fixed?"

Reluctant, I haul a notebook outa my pocket. I open up to where I copied old Hermes Trismigestus' formula for making the elixir of youth.

"Look," I say. "The formula is headed, _To Make an Olde Manne a Youthe Againe_. It gives the directions I tried to follow. I--uh--I guess the answer is in this here last paragraph I come close to not copying at all. Uh--it says at the end, _To Make an Aged Crone into a Younge Damsel: the formula is ye same, excepte ye ashe of mandrake is to bee lefte oute_."

Jode whacks me. Hard. Wow! To be fair, I guess, I'd ha' done the same. But--anyway, Jode and me have a right nice cottage, now, and I got a pretty good private experimental laboratory in it, and I'm working on the problem of adjusting matters in a more nearly normal way. Jode ain't been after me so much lately, though. It looks what you might call a sort of change of viewpoint is developing. Jode always did go in for fancy clothes, and the opportunity and cash for fancy clothes are on the job. Jode dresses magnificent, and is kind of looking the world over from a new viewpoint. The new viewpoint gets more tolerable as time goes on. I am treated with a certain amount of respect and--like I said--I got a swell laboratory. I pass for Jode's brother. Jode seems to treat me like a kid brother, too. She gets mad as hell when I tell her she uses too much make-up.