The Project Gutenberg EBook of Toy Shop, by Henry Maxwell Dempsey

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Toy Shop

Author: Henry Maxwell Dempsey

Illustrator: Brey

Release Date: October 12, 2007 [EBook #22966]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOY SHOP ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

[Illustration: TOY]

The gadget was strictly,
beyond any question, a toy.
Not a real, workable device.
Except for the way it could work
under a man's mental skin....

BY HARRY HARRISON

[Illustration: SHOP]

Because there were few adults in the crowd, and Colonel "Biff" Hawton
stood over six feet tall, he could see every detail of the
demonstration. The children--and most of the parents--gaped in wide-eyed
wonder. Biff Hawton was too sophisticated to be awed. He stayed on
because he wanted to find out what the trick was that made the gadget
work.

"It's all explained right here in your instruction book," the
demonstrator said, holding up a garishly printed booklet opened to a
four-color diagram. "You all know how magnets pick up things and I bet
you even know that the earth itself is one great big magnet--that's why
compasses always point north. Well ... the Atomic Wonder Space Wave
Tapper hangs onto those space waves. Invisibly all about us, and even
going right through us, are the magnetic waves of the earth. The Atomic
Wonder rides these waves just the way a ship rides the waves in the
ocean. Now watch...."

Every eye was on him as he put the gaudy model rocketship on top of the
table and stepped back. It was made of stamped metal and seemed as
incapable of flying as a can of ham--which it very much resembled.
Neither wings, propellors, nor jets broke through the painted surface.
It rested on three rubber wheels and coming out through the bottom was a
double strand of thin insulated wire. This white wire ran across the top
of the black table and terminated in a control box in the demonstrator's
hand. An indicator light, a switch and a knob appeared to be the only
cont