Part 2

"Oh, Lord!" he cried. "I'm dying!"

"And if those licensed butchers get to hacking you up, you're a goner," Toffee said anxiously. "I have the inside information. There isn't much time. I've got to concentrate like wild."

"But...!"

"Quiet!" Toffee broke in. "Please be quiet," she closed her eyes again and her lips began to move as before. "Molecules," she murmured.

Marc remained rigid at her side. Panic rose inside him and filled his throat. His impulse was to turn and run blindly--perhaps back to that dying mortal body--but his terror held him transfixed. Staring down at Toffee, he felt he might go mad in the next moment. In the next moment he was certain he had.

Just in front of Toffee, close to the mossy greenness, he caught sight of a quick flicker of light, a strange disembodied illumination that was at once its own source and product. As he watched it flickered again, grew brighter and became a steady radiance. He glanced back at Toffee, but her face had become fixed and masklike. Her lips no longer moved.

The radiance grew swiftly, to an almost unbearable brightness. In it there was a cold hard suggestion of metal. Then it began to take form and solidify. Marc blinked as the thing, whatever it was, grew slowly out of the gleaming brilliance.

First a cylinder emerged, about a foot long and four or five inches in diameter. For a moment the object seemed to have completed itself, but then, one at either end, a pair of funnel-shaped openings emerged. These completed, a small, two-way switch arrangement appeared at the top and in the center of the cylinder. After that, the radiance was gone and only the strange instrument remained, lying on the grass before Toffee as though cast there by a careless hand.

"What--!" Marc gasped.

Toffee's perky features relaxed. She opened her eyes.

"Did it turn out all right?" she asked brightly. "Is it finished?"

"Huh?" Marc asked. He pointed. "You mean _that_?"

"Oh, wonderful!" Toffee cried, delighted. "It's rather pretty the way it shines, isn't it?"

"What is it?"

"How should I know?" Toffee said blandly. "Just a gadget. There's never been one before."

"You mean you just developed it out of your mind?"

"Sure," Toffee said. "It's a thought product--like me. Now if it only works right...." Picking up the instrument, she looked at it carefully and nodded with satisfaction. "It should be simple to operate."

"But what's it for?"

"I'll show you," Toffee said. She pointed to a nearby tree. "See that?" Marc nodded. "Keep looking at it."

* * * * *

Turning to the tree, she held the cylinder toward it, so that one of the funnels was aimed squarely in its direction.

"Now watch," she said, and pressed the switch.

Marc, staring at the tree in rapt attention, started with surprise. Suddenly the tree was gone with no sign that it had ever been there.

"What...!"

"The next part is more important," Toffee said.

"Next part?" Marc said dazedly. "But where is it? Where...?"

"See there?" Toffee said, and this time she pointed to the center of the clearing. "Watch."

Holding the cylinder so that the opposite end was pointed to the clearing, she pressed the switch in the other direction. Instantly the tree shot into being exactly at the spot she had indicated.

Marc stared. It was the same tree--the one that had disappeared--and yet it was subtly different. It seemed greener now, more alive.

"What happened?" he asked. "What did you do to it?"

"Molecules," Toffee said, smiling. "I broke it down into molecules, then projected it again. The machine absorbed the tree in molecules, compressed them, reconstructed the faulty or destroyed ones, eliminated all harmful matter and retained the count to reestablish it in perfect balance and health. It worked fine."

"My gosh!" Marc said.

Drawing close to him, Toffee twined her arms around his neck with knowing deliberation and drew his surprised face down close to hers.

"I'm going to save your stodgy life with molecules, you skinny old, care-worn wraith," she breathed. "Then you'll be in my pay for the rest of your days. Just keep it in mind later when things begin to happen."

"Huh?" Marc said. "What things?"

"You'll see," Toffee said. "Wow!"

Marc drew himself up stiffly. "Now, look here," he said sternly, "you can just get this wow business right out of your head...."

"And if that doesn't work," Toffee said, "I've been studying hypnotism. I can transfix a snake at fifty yards." She brushed her cheek lightly against his. "Just think of that, you scaly old reptile."

"Just a second," Marc said. "If you think for one sec--"

But the sentiment was lost as Toffee renewed her hold on his neck and kissed him warmly and at considerable length on the mouth.

"That," she whispered, "is just a token payment in advance. Just wait till the mortgage comes due!"

"Why, you little hussy...!" Marc wheezed. "You haven't the moral sense of a brickbat!"

He stopped short, for suddenly the forest had begun to darken and a sharp wind came alive in the trees. He glanced around, startled, as the earth began to tremble beneath them. Instinctively, he whirled about, looking for an escape from the forest, but suddenly, with a groan of dismay, the world went black, and he was only aware of Toffee's arms closing tight about his neck....

* * * * *

The orderly was a pale, antiseptic type. And he was resentful. Wheeling Marc along the hallway toward Surgery, he looked down at the drawn face beneath him with a twinge of pique. He strongly resented the fact that the face was not behaving at all as the face of a true corpse-elect should.

According to the orderly, a dying man had no right to twitch and flutter his eyelids the way this one was doing, let alone showing signs of coming completely to life. It made the orderly nervous and upset.

For a moment the orderly almost succumbed to an impulse to walk off and leave the patient to shift for himself. It was what he deserved if he was going to act that way. Nonetheless, he remained. Consequently, Marc's first vision, upon returning to consciousness, was of a pale, fretful face with white eyelashes and thin lips. He had expected something better.

"Who are you?" he asked weakly. "Are you the doctor?"

The orderly shook his head sullenly. "I'm the orderly. The doctor's waiting."

"They mustn't operate," Marc murmured. "I'll die...." He stopped as a pert face suddenly blurred into view just behind that of the orderly. A slender hand brushed back a wayward lock of red hair. Toffee smiled and winked.

Marc moaned. "Oh, so it's you, is it?" he sighed. "What are you so happy about? I feel awful."

"I'm not happy, sir," the orderly said, mystified. "I'm not happy at all. In fact, if you want the truth...." He paused, and the apprehensive expression of one who detects an unseen presence behind him overtook his face. Very slowly, he turned around.

It would be difficult to say what the orderly expected to find behind him: a fanged reptile might have made a good guess, a slavering fiend another. It is certain, however, judging from his reaction, that on the list of things he did not expect to find, a scantily clad redhead was number one. Toffee, her legs crossed to perfection, the cylinder-like gadget under her arm, sat jauntily on the edge of the cart, smiling a bright greeting. The young man leaped backwards and froze in a transfix of amazement.

"Auk!" he exclaimed.

Toffee turned to Marc. "Is he doing a bird imitation?" she asked. "Should I applaud?"

"Don't be funny," Marc said feebly. "I feel terrible."

"I know," Toffee said. "I got here just in time."

"For what?" Marc asked apprehensively. "What are you going to do?"

Toffee patted the cylinder. "I'm going to save your life," she said. "Don't you remember?"

Marc looked at her through heavy lids. "That's silly," he murmured. "Just go 'way and let me die in peace."

Unmindful, Toffee leaped lightly to the floor, stood back and aimed the gadget at Marc. "All set?" she said.

"Here!" the attendant said, suddenly recovering the faculty of speech. "What are you doing?"

"Advancing medical science a mile a minute," Toffee said. "Don't interrupt."

"But...!"

* * * * *

Toffee placed her hand menacingly on her hip and fixed the young man with a steely eye. "Am I going to have to deal with you?" she asked, "Or are you going to button your lip like a good child?"

The orderly spoke no further.

Toffee raised the cylinder, sighting the length of Marc's lean, sheet-covered body. Then she pressed the switch.

The orderly stared, wide-eyed, and repeated his bird imitation. The place where Marc had lain was suddenly as bare as a banquet board after the feast. Where a moment before there had been a long thin man, now there was only a long, thin sheet.

"Hey!" the orderly bleated. "Ho!"

"So long, phrasemaker," Toffee said, and tucking the cylinder under her arm, moved off quickly down the hall and around the corner.

It was just as the orderly observed the last flirt of Toffee's hip that the doctor appeared from the door of the operating room and looked distractedly in his direction.

"Good grief, man!" he said, "haven't you brought Pillsworth with you?"

The orderly started nervously and looked around.

"He ... he ... he...!" he gibbered. "That is, she ... she...!" He pointed in hopeless confusion down the hall.

"What are you babbling about?" the doctor enquired shortly. "Where is Pillsworth?"

"He.... He's gone, sir!" the attendant blurted.

"Gone?" the doctor said. "Where did he go?"

The orderly looked away down the hall. "There was this girl, see ... she had red hair and a can...."

"Now, just a minute, orderly," the doctor said measuredly. "If you think you can distract me with the depressing details of your sex life...."

"But you don't understand! She was holding this thing ... and she told me to shut up ... and then Mr. Pillsworth wasn't there any more. That's the truth!"

"Let me impress it upon you," the doctor said, "that this is a very serious incident. I can't imagine how a half-dead patient managed to get away from you, but you'll find him instantly and deliver him to surgery if you know what's good for you. Meanwhile, I'll have the alarm sent out to all the wards and offices. I hope you realize that your carelessness has undoubtedly cost the patient his last chance for life. Without the slightest doubt I can pronounce Marc Pillsworth dead right now."

As the doctor spoke these last words, a small gust of wind--or at least what could easily have passed for a small gust of wind--eddied around the corner at the end of the hall. It was this slight disturbance which marked the arrival of George on Earth.

At the sound of the doctor's voice, the ghost stopped, listened, then clasped his hands together in a transport of joy. He had arrived just in time to receive the happy news! Marc was dead and he, George, had at last secured his permanent residency on Earth. Out of sheer exuberance the delighted spectre let out a little moan of delight.

The orderly, who was watching the doctor gloomily out of sight, turned sharply.

"Mr. Pillsworth?" he quavered thinly. "Mr. Pillsworth, please...?"

* * * * *

Meanwhile Toffee had progressed busily along the corridors of the hospital in search of some private--and preferably secluded--place in which to reconstruct Marc. Finally, rounding a corner, she found herself abreast of a pair of swinging doors and started toward them. She stopped, however, and turned in retreat as the doors suddenly parted and a doctor and nurse, deep in conversation, came into view. She started back the way she had come, but was stopped again by an approaching nurse pushing an elderly female patient in a wheel chair flanked on either side by a crutch. Looking for an avenue of escape, Toffee spotted a white linen screen against the wall and darted quickly behind it to bide her time till the traffic had subsided.

This ruse, on the face of it, hadn't a flaw and should have worked like a charm. It should have that is, if Toffee, in her haste, hadn't plumped against the wall and unknowingly pressed the button of the gadget.

The result of this little accident was that the doctor and the nurse approaching from one direction, and the nurse and the patient coming from the other--all four of them suddenly found themselves confronted by a tall, thin man standing bewilderedly in the center of the hall with nothing to grace his long frame but an extremely brief linen shift loosely attached at the back. Toffee had released Marc into reality and good health, but costumed only for the operating table.

No one was more acutely aware of this deficiency than Marc himself. Looking around unhappily at his stunned beholders and taking in his slight coverage all in a single glance, he was taken with a seizure of shocked modesty. Hunkering down into a squat he clutched the hem of his gown desperately to his knees.

"My word!" the elderly patient said, leaning forward in her chair. "What in the world does that man think he's doing!"

"I don't like to think," the nurse said, looking away. "It's bound to be something disgusting."

"Here you!" the doctor called from the other end of the corridor. "You can't do that! Why are you crouched down in that obscene way?"

"I'm naked!" Marc wailed. He lowered his voice to a whisper. "I'm downright exposed!"

"There's no reason to whisper about it," the doctor said nastily. "We can all see."

"Oh, my gosh!" Marc cried. Looking around for a retreat, his frantic gaze fell on the screen. Still in a squat, he hobbled swiftly toward it.

"Look at him!" the patient cried, rising slightly in her chair. "Here, you! Stop doing that, for heaven's sake! You look like an ailing duck!"

"That's nothing to what I'd look like if I stood up," Marc panted in one last sprint for the screen. "That would be worse."

* * * * *

It was not until this point in the proceedings that Toffee began to realize what had happened. Listening to the voices in the hall, it had struck her that one of them had a dreadfully familiar ring to it. It was much to her dismay that, in peering around the edge of the screen, she suddenly found herself practically eyeball to eyeball with Marc. She let out a small, strangled cry.

"Oh, my gosh!" she said.

"For Pete's sake, let me in there!" Marc said.

"But how did you get out there?"

"How should I know? Never mind that, let me in. They're all _looking_!"

"At what?"

"I shudder to think. Please let me in!"

"But why are you all doubled up like that?"

Tired of words, Marc reached up to the screen to pull it away so he could get behind it. Unfortunately, it was at this same instant that Toffee decided to shove it open to make room. With their combined efforts, the screen buckled, folded, teetered and fell, cracking Marc solidly on the head. The next moment found him in an unconscious sprawl on the floor. The area behind the screen was starkly deserted. The observers crowded in swiftly to see what had happened.

"Good God!" the doctor cried, staring down at Marc. "It's Pillsworth, the man they're looking for in Surgery!"

"Is he dead?" the nurse asked.

The doctor shook his head. "He's breathing. Run and call an orderly to take him along instantly. Hurry!"

As the nurse hurried off, the elderly patient removed one of the crutches from the side of her chair and passed it experimentally through the vacant area beyond the screen. She shook her head in perplexity.

"By golly," she said, "I could have _sworn_ he was talkin' to somebody back there."

* * * * *

While this untimely denouement was rounding out in the hallway, a mad drama of another sort was beginning to ferment in the Pharmacy.

Olliphant Gunn, the rotund and habitually foggy keeper of the dopes and drugs, had been watching it for several minutes; there was trouble brewing in the Salts and Syrups--trouble of a most mysterious and upsetting nature. The containers, for all the world as though they had suddenly been endowed with some idiotic life of their own, had begun to shift about all by themselves. Watching a jar of salts hurl itself to the floor and splash its contents out in a whitish mess, Olliphant Gunn concluded definitely that there was some sort of flimflam afoot.

This conclusion was stoutly strengthened as he witnessed the progress of his private bottle from its hiding place amongst the medicants to a position in mid-air in front of the shelves. Olliphant began to quiver about the dewlaps. He quivered even more as the bottle uncapped itself, tilted upward and emptied a noticeable portion of its contents into--into absolutely nothing at all!

Olliphant fell back in his chair, slack of jaw, and it is doubtful, had anyone been able to apprise him of the truth of the matter, that he'd have felt any better about it. To a man in his cups, as Olliphant was, the news does not come lightly that he is in the company of a thirsty ghost, with an unerring nose for whiskey, and a predisposition for celebration.

Olliphant watched in bleary disbelief as the bottle repeated the tilting and emptying process. Then his mood began to change. Regardless of what this obviously demented bottle thought it was up to, it had no right to deplete his private reserves in this callous fashion. The slack jaw of Olliphant Gunn hitched itself up and became firm.

"Stop that!" Olliphant roared. "You stop that right now, damnit!"

For a moment the bottle wavered, as though startled, then defiantly upended a third time and brought the level of the coveted liquor down still further. Quite as though to rub salt in the wound, it burped with grandiose satisfaction.

"Damnation!" Olliphant gasped. "I'll teach you, you blathering bottle!"

Heaving his considerable bulk up out of his chair, he hurled himself bodily toward the object of his wrath.

* * * * *

The laws of nature, however, were against Olliphant from the very beginning. As the bottle darted out of his reach, sheer momentum carried him headlong into the dim reaches of Salts and Syrups. Gravity delivered him along with a quantity of gummy liquid and gritty crystallines to the floor. Settled in a sticky puddle of wreckage, Olliphant glanced around with a reddish, enraged expression. Besides salt and syrup, there was blood in his eye.

At a distance sufficiently out of reach, yet insultingly near, the bottle was bobbing about amusedly. Indeed, Olliphant distinctly heard a soft chuckling sound coming from its direction. With a jungle roar he surged up from the floor and launched a second attack. This netted him another disastrous collision, this time with the glassware department. The Pharmacy was swiftly being transformed into a scene of chaos.

In the interval, the bottle had retreated to a position by the doorway and was humming maddeningly to itself. Suddenly it burst into full-throated song.

"Goin' to Louisiana," it warbled, "for a case of good whis-kee! Goin' to Louisiana with a hussy on mah knee!"

Olliphant settled himself sadly on an untidy mound of rubble and began to brood. There was no use denying it; the thing was just too much for him. As he watched the bottle bob back and forth in time with the idiot song, a large tear trickled down his cheek. Olliphant Gunn was just a broken reed in the holocaust of Life, and his ruination had come about through a mere mad bottle. The man began to blubber hopelessly.

It was during this heart-rending climax that the nurse, a small blonde, appeared at the doorway and stared into the pharmacy with large wondering blue eyes.

The invisible George, who had been enjoying his own singing to the utmost, stopped at the sight of the newcomer in mid verse. Things, he decided, were beginning to look up. Warmed by the liquor, George was dazzled and enchanted.

Unfortunately the nurse was neither of these. Striding through the door, she stepped into a trickle of syrup and skidded dangerously toward Olliphant. George, feeling that things were moving in the wrong direction entirely, seized upon the floundering blonde with one deft swoop of his invisible arm and lifted her to dry ground. It was a moment before he was able to account for the girl's shrill screams.

A period of stupefied silence followed as the nurse glanced around suspiciously. As a girl who, in line of business, had experienced considerable traffic with men, she was disposed to know to the exact moment when she had been forcibly clutched by a masculine hand. Also, which only made matters worse, she was a girl who knew where she had been clutched and why.

* * * * *

In looking around for masculine hands available for clutching, a quick survey told the nurse that the room inventoried two and both of them were the exclusive property of Olliphant Gunn. Geographically it seemed impossible that either of these hands could have performed the recent clutching, but in her anger the nurse was not the one to quibble over details. Seizing up a large crystal beaker she unhesitatingly smashed it to splinters on Olliphant's skull with one smart whack. Olliphant looked up through his tears.

"What you wanna do that for, lady?" he sobbed.

"You know what for," the nurse gritted, looking around for further ammunition. "And that's only the beginning. If you ever...." She stopped as she suddenly encountered the floating bottle. Instinctively, or perhaps out of sheer surprise, she grabbed for it. At any rate, it was not until she had gotten a grip on the thing that she realized that this was a bottle not properly on the up and up. This fact was brought home to her even more clearly when the bottle refused to budge in her grasp and even showed a definite tendency to pull away.

For a long moment the nurse merely stared at the bottle with a wondering gaze. Then slowly an expression of determination came into her pretty face. Squaring her stance, she took hold of the offending container with both hands.

"It's no use," Olliphant said from the floor. "That bottle's mean."

Heedless, the nurse braced herself and tugged with all her strength. The bottle gave by a foot, then lurched drunkenly in her grasp. Down on the floor the rivulet of syrup became disturbed, as though feet were churning through it desperately seeking to regain lost traction.

Suddenly the bottle gave way and the nurse toppled backwards into Olliphant's lap. Olliphant received this new burden with resignation and a grunt. Across the room, however, there was another sound, as of a body coming in swift contact with the floor.

"Damn!" the nurse said hotly, turning to Olliphant. "Keep your big oafish hands off me! Stop reaching."

"I'm only reaching for the bottle," Olliphant said. "It's mine."

"It didn't feel like it," the nurse retorted. "It felt more like...." She hesitated as from the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of a long body sprawled on the floor. At first glimpse it seemed that the body had no head, but as she looked more closely she saw that it did, though she had the peculiar sensation that it had just come into being. Handing Olliphant the bottle she got to her feet and approached the prone figure. Noting that it was dressed for surgery, she stood staring down at it quizzically for a moment.

"Holy smoke!" she breathed. "It's Pillsworth!" She turned to Olliphant. "Come on and help me. We've got to get him down to Surgery right away!"

* * * * *

Marc felt himself rising through the last shredded mists of unconsciousness. He tried to open his eyes but a glaring light made the attempt too painful.

"Give him the anaesthetic," a voice said close by.

Panic pulsed through Marc's body. They were going to operate! Necessity gave him a surge of strength and he sat up, staring wildly at the three doctors gathered over him.